Ex-San Clemente Officer Guilty of Rape : Crime: Man described as ‘predator’ also is convicted of sexual battery against another woman. He could be sentenced to 13 years in prison.

A former San Clemente police officer, described by a prosecutor as a “predator” who “preys on smaller or weaker people,” was convicted by an Orange County jury Friday of raping a former colleague on the police force and sexually battering another woman he had met while on duty.

However, the nine-man, three-woman jury acquitted David Wayne Bryan, 33, of three counts of sexually assaulting a third woman, a convenience store clerk from Minnesota. Jurors declared themselves deadlocked 8 to 4 in favor of convicting Bryan of one other rape count involving the clerk. Superior Court Judge David O. Carter declared a mistrial on that count.

Bryan’s $50,000 bail was immediately revoked and he was taken into custody. Sentencing is set for Jan. 17.

Assistant Dist. Atty. Jan C. Sturla said that Bryan faces up to 13 years in prison for the single forcible rape conviction and the two counts of sexual battery--all felonies--and a misdemeanor assault conviction.

Three misdemeanor charges against Bryan, involving a fourth woman, are still pending, Sturla said. At least seven women have told authorities that Bryan aggressively propositioned them or forced himself on them sexually.

A former San Clemente policewoman testified that Bryan attacked her in April, 1990, after they had completed a night shift. Then a probationary officer and now a law student, the woman said Bryan had asked to see a room in the house she was sharing with her fiance, because he thought he might want to rent it.

She said Bryan, who did not testify, asked to use her bathroom to take a shower and take a nap in the bedroom. As she was trying to go to sleep in her own room, the woman said that Bryan emerged from the bathroom naked and started climbing onto her bed and grappling with her. She said she tried to talk him out of what he was doing and struggled with him unsuccessfully.

“I kept telling him, ‘No, Dave, we’re friends. . . . I’m engaged. No, I don’t want this.’ I kept trying to push him off, but he’s a big guy,” she testified during the trial.

Asked by a defense attorney why she did not offer more resistance, the woman replied: “How much do you have to physically resist to tell someone ‘no’? . . . He knew what he was doing was wrong.”

She did not report the incident at the time, she testified, because she thought no one in the Police Department would believe her. She came forward after she was fired from the force at the conclusion of her 18-month probation and after Bryan had been accused of raping the convenience store clerk.

Two top Police Department officials, including Chief Albert Ehlow, testified that the woman’s rape accusation had nothing to do with their decision to fire her.

A second woman testified that Bryan had driven her home after she had locked her keys in her car in a San Clemente bank parking lot. The next day, she said, he appeared at her home and asked her out. She refused, she said, but on another occasion he showed up at her home, uninvited, early in the morning.

Bryan managed to get in, walked into the bathroom where she was dressing for work, grabbed her and fondled her. He pushed her into the bedroom and onto the bed, where she fought him off.

“I said I did not want this,” she testified. “I told him to get out . . . and it kind of kicked in what was happening.”

Bryan was convicted on two counts of sexual battery as a result of that encounter.

In another incident, a 21-year-old former convenience store clerk also accused Bryan of raping her, but he was not convicted on that charge.