Former O.C. Officer Guilty of Sex Attacks

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.

Bryan’s $50,000 bail was immediately revoked, and he was taken into custody. Superior Court Judge David O. Carter set sentencing for Jan. 17.

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

Three other 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.

Assistant Public Defender Leonard Gumlia, one of Bryan’s two attorneys, expressed disappointment but added that with the acquittals, “we got most all of the verdicts we wanted.”

Gumlia said he planned to appeal the conviction. Bryan, who did not take the witness stand during the trial, was prepared for the verdict, Gumlia said.

“He told me he was going to take it with dignity,” although he was still “upset,” Gumlia said.

One juror, Dennis Neal of Seal Beach, said “believability” and “credibility” of the witnesses played a key role in the verdict.

“Most of our discussions revolved around credibility of the witnesses, consistency in their testimony, and we made our decision based on that,” he said.

Another juror, Jeff Ehrlich of Mission Viejo, said: “We spent 20 hours in deliberation and we feel comfortable with our decision. We just went by the testimony.”

A former San Clemente policewoman testified during the trial 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 that Bryan had asked to see a room in the house she was sharing with her fiance, indicating that he might want to rent it.

She said that Bryan 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, walked into her bedroom and started climbing onto her bed and grappling with her. She said she tried to convince him to stop 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.”

The woman said she was confused at first about what was happening, saying: “If it had been a stranger . . . and I had a gun, I probably would have shot him.”

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 period and after Bryan had been accused of raping the convenience store clerk.

Police Chief Albert C. Ehlow testified that the woman’s rape accusation had nothing to do with the decision to fire her.

Another officer, Lt. Paul Falk, testified only after being granted immunity from prosecution on obstruction-of-justice charges. Falk said that the woman officer had told him about Bryan’s assault but had pledged him to secrecy. Although he believed her, he admitted that he did not tell district attorney’s investigators about the assault. He also said nothing about it during a department personnel meeting when the decision was made to fire the woman, he testified.

A San Clemente woman testified that in 1988, Bryan had driven her home after she had locked her keys in her car in a bank parking lot. The following 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 again early in the morning.

She testified that Bryan entered the house uninvited, 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 told him to stop and finally 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. He was also charged with attempted rape, but the jury found him guilty of simple assault.

In another incident, a 21-year-old convenience store clerk also accused Bryan of raping her, but he was not convicted on that count. The woman testified that in late January, 1991, she gave Bryan her phone number after he stopped by the store where she was working the night shift. Two days later, Bryan called her and said he was coming to her house to pick her up.

The woman, who acknowledged a history of drug and alcohol problems, as well as bouts of depression and a self-described sexual addiction, said she got into Bryan’s car and went to his house, but that she had no intention of having sex with him.

At the house, she said Bryan told her that he was “drunk and horny” and, although she resisted him verbally and physically, he overpowered her several times. At a later point, she testified, she voluntarily engaged in sexual activities to “get it over with.”

The next morning, she reported the incident to police.

In a taped interview with an investigator from the district attorney’s office, Bryan maintained that sexual relations with the store clerk were voluntary and that no force had been used. He did say that the woman had initially resisted his advances and that he had been the “aggressor.”

Nancy Bean, a veteran San Clemente police officer, testified that she had an verbal encounter with Bryan in the department parking lot only minutes before he left to pick up the convenience store clerk. Bean testified that Bryan, who appeared to be under the influence of alcohol, told her he wanted to have sex with her at an upcoming workshop in San Diego. She told him she was not interested.

Bean said she told him “I was not going to sleep with him. I told him that no means no,” but that Bryan replied: “You don’t know me well. . . . When I want something, I get it.”

Shortly after the parking lot incident, Bean said she filed a written account of the incident to her superiors but knew of no follow-up actions taken by the department.