Sentencing postponed for former Shoreline school superintendent

A Marin County Superior Court judge on Wednesday postponed the sentencing for a former school superintendent who was found guilty of lewd conduct with a minor.

Judge Beth Jordan accepted a request from Robert Patrick Raines’ defense attorney, Charles Dresow to move the sentencing back to Jan. 8.

His 69-year-old client could face a year in jail and a $5,000 fine for his misdemeanor conviction. A jury on Nov. 13 decided that Raines committed the offense of annoying or molesting a child.

Raines was working as the superintendent of the Shoreline Unified School District in 2021 when he was arrested on suspicion of committing a felony offense. That charge was later reduced to a misdemeanor.

During Raines’ three-day trial last month, jurors heard a Shoreline district employee testify that she walked into Raines’ office in Tomales and believe that she saw him inappropriately touching her son. She often brought her child with her to work while he took his online class during the COVID-19 closure of his campus. The mother said her son bonded with Raines over comic books and drawing in the superintendent’s office.

She said in court that her son later told her that Raines placed his hand into his pocket and rubbed his upper leg. On the day after the incident, she recorded her telephone conversion with the superintendent who said he did not recall putting his hand into her son’s pocket.

“I feel like I trusted you,” she told Raines in the recording that was played in court.

Later during the trial, the child testified that the defendant reached into his pocket and touched a buttock.

The jury also heard from a retired teacher who testified that she confronted him about having students sit on his lap in his office when he was principal of Wilson Elementary School in Petaluma. A former Wilson student, now 27, testified that Raines placed ointment on his genital area when he had a poison oak rash.

No charges were filed against Raines when he worked at Wilson, but prosecutor Katie Panzer said this case showed a pattern of Raines expressing an abnormal interest in children.

Raines did not testify in his defense during his trial. Dresow in his closing argument said that the prosecution failed to prove that his client was motivated by an abnormal or sexual interest in children.

Raines led the Shoreline school district that operates six campuses and educates about 500 students in the Bodega Bay and western Marin areas.