A Kent County jury today cleared a former Grand Rapids police officer of the most serious charges he faced for the December 2014 sexual assault of his former girlfriend, but found him guilty of a lesser felony that will still likely send him to prison.
Ryan Bruggink was acquitted of home invasion and two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony that carries a maximum term of life in prison.
Jurors found him guilty of third-degree criminal sexual conduct, which involves sexual penetration by force or coercion. It carries a maximum penalty of up to 15 years in prison.
The guilty verdict was tied to a sex act that led the 29-year-old victim to order Bruggink from her home on Nov. 25, 2014 after the two had engaged in other sex acts.
Kent County Circuit Court Judge Donald A. Johnston ordered Bruggink held in the Kent County Jail until he is sentenced on May 3.
Today's verdict caps a trial that entered its second week on Monday with graphic detail of the sexual encounters between Bruggink and his accuser over the course of their 11-month relationship.
Bruggink took the stand in his own defense, telling jurors he and his accuser “pushed the boundaries’’ in their sexual relationship.
He referred to the single, 29-year-old mother of three as “mommy’’ and gave lurid testimony about sharing “rough sex’’ during myriad “booty calls’’ at the woman’s home in Wyoming.
“It was a very sexual relationship, that’s mainly what we did the whole entire time,’’ he testified on the fifth day of his jury trial for home invasion and first-degree criminal sexual conduct. “We were always pushing the boundaries.’’
Bruggink estimates they had sex “99 percent of the time’’ they got together. Boundaries were few; their sexual exploits included spanking, spitting, choking and handcuffs.
But Bruggink denied the prosecution’s assertion he forced his way into the woman’s house on Nov. 25, 2014 and raped her.
During opening statements last week, Kent County Assistant Prosecutor Jeff Kemperman told jurors the woman repeatedly told Bruggink not to stop by her house that night.
Bruggink, he said, ignores “one of the most fundamental rules that we have in the law. Quite simply? No means no.’’
Defense attorney William D. McCririe told jurors that Bruggink did visit the woman that night, but said the sex was consensual.
“This was a mutually beneficial rough sex relationship between these two people,’’ he said in opening statements. “Think about how many times have these people have done these very same things with each other.’’