PONTIAC — After meeting with attorneys to discuss a plea agreement, a Livingston County judge made a recommendation Wednesday for an appropriate sentence for Robert L. Dinkins, a former Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley coach and teacher charged with six counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse for alleged sexual activities with a high-school student.
According to online Ford County Circuit Court records, Judge Mary Koll made the “preliminary” recommendation after hearing from special prosecutor Kate Kurtz and Dinkins’ two Springfield attorneys, Mark Wykoff Sr. and Daniel Fultz, during a so-called “Rule 402(d) conference” held via Zoom from Koll’s Livingston County chambers.
DINKINS
Koll set a pretrial hearing for 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 14, via Zoom. Dinkins will be notified to appear at the hearing remotely from the Ford County Jail, where he remains detained.
Koll was reassigned the case in June, after the 39-year-old Dinkins, a Gibson City resident, was arrested and charged in Ford County Circuit Court. Gibson City Police Chief Adam Rosendahl said an investigation revealed “there was data to support Mr. Dinkins having participated in sexual activities with a high-school-age student.” Rosendahl said police executed a search warrant at Dinkins’ residence, where they seized his phone and other electronics for forensic analysis.
Dinkins, a 13-year employee of the GCMS school district, was fired in April from his positions as eighth-grade math teacher and coach of the eighth-grade boys’ basketball and boys’ track teams and GCMS/Fisher varsity soccer team. Dinkins previously served as an assistant coach for the high school’s boys’ basketball team.
Prior to working at GCMS, Dinkins was an eighth-grade student teacher at Wilmington Middle School in fall 2011 and worked in a sixth-grade teaching practicum at Franklin Middle School in fall 2010 and an eighth-grade practicum at Cumberland Middle School in Toledo in spring 2011.