Ex-Officer in Rape Trial Termed ‘Bully’ : Courts: Jury deliberations begin today, with David Wayne Bryan facing up to 40 years in prison if convicted.

The prosecutor in the rape trial of a former San Clemente police officer on Tuesday called him a “bully” who “selected his victims because of their vulnerability.”

David Wayne Bryan, 33, faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted of all eight felony counts against him, including rape and sexual battery. He was fired for violating department policy and is free on $50,000 bail.

The three alleged victims in the trial were a convenience store clerk just off the bus from Minnesota, a probationary policewoman in Bryan’s own department and a woman who asked for help after locking her keys in her car.

“What this case is all about,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Jan C. Sturla told the jury in his closing arguments, is “their right to look this man in the eye and say ‘no.’ ”

In Bryan’s view, expressed in court in a tape-recorded interview, “all women say ‘no,’ but they don’t mean ‘no,’ ” Sturla said.

But Deputy Public Defender Leonard Gumlia said that the convenience store clerk lied repeatedly because she was depressed, drug-addled and a sex addict; that the former policewoman lied repeatedly because she was trying to keep her job, and that the woman who locked her keys in the car was confused.

“This weekend, tonight,” Gumlia said, “tens and even hundreds of thousands of women across the country will acquiesce to the sexual advances of men. Many of them will express initial reluctance, many of them will flatly state ‘no’ at the outset, but they will ultimately decide to have sex anyway.”

Sturla responded that the examples Gumlia gave all involved couples in relationships, and that no intimate relationships existed between Bryan and any of his accusers.

The convenience store clerk, who has since returned to Minnesota, testified that Bryan called her several days after meeting her in January, 1991, and told her he was coming to her house to pick her up. She said that he took her to his home and forced her to have sex, despite her struggle.

In his taped interview, Bryan denied that he ever used force, but acknowledged he was the “aggressor” in the encounter and that the woman had put up “initial resistance.”

The former policewoman said that she considered Bryan a friend, but that in June, 1990, he attacked her at the home she shared with her fiance, who was out. Both the woman and Bryan had finished night shift duty and the woman testified that she let Bryan take a shower while she tried to sleep, only to find him climbing into her bed.

The third woman said that in 1988, on the morning after Bryan drove her home after she locked her keys in her car, he appeared at her house and walked in the door as she was getting ready for work. He assaulted her in her bathroom and bedroom, the woman testified, before she persuaded him to leave.

The jury begins its deliberations this morning. Superior Court Judge David O. Carter said that if no verdict is reached by Friday, not normally a trial day, the jury would deliberate throughout the day.