BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. — The criminal case against Ryan Kesler, a former NHL center charged with two misdemeanor counts of criminal sexual conduct in the fourth degree, is headed to trial, a judge ruled on Thursday.
The prosecution successfully established probable cause against Kesler during a preliminary examination, district judge Marc Barron found.
Kesler, 41, has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which were filed against him on Oct. 23 over events on Jan. 1, according to court records.
According to the criminal complaint, both counts allege that Kesler engaged in sexual contact with a 16-year-old child “through force or coercion and/or (had) reason to know the victim was physically helpless.”
The alleged victim is now 17 and was a friend of Kesler’s eldest daughter.
During more than two hours on the stand, the victim told the court that, after falling asleep on a couch next to Kesler in the hours following a New Year’s Eve party at his home, she awoke to find his foot rubbing her crotch and her foot touching his erect penis over a pair of shorts.
She arrived at Kesler’s house after midnight, she told prosecuting attorney Gabrielle Meyer, after becoming upset at a different party with different friends. Kesler’s daughter offered to pick her up and bring her back to the family home, where Kesler, his wife, Andrea, their other children, another of their daughter’s friends and two of the couple’s neighbors had gathered. They welcomed her with hugs, she said.
Kesler had been drinking alcohol, the complainant said, but she had not. The group danced and listened to music for about an hour and then made food, the complainant said. The gathering thinned out, and when the two other teenage girls in the house went upstairs to prepare for bed, the complainant was left alone with Kesler. He asked her about her life and her parents and gave her advice on dealing with teenage boys.
“I told (Kesler) he was like a second father to me,” the complainant said, adding that his daughters were like sisters to her, and she was happy with his response.
Eventually, she said, Kesler asked if she wanted to watch a movie. “I was kind of weirded out by that,” she said, “but I’d just called him a second dad to me … I would watch a movie with my dad.” Kesler scrolled through Netflix for a bit and landed on the movie “It Ends with Us.” They started the movie while sitting on opposite ends of the couch, she said, and she grabbed a blanket and put her feet up on a coffee table.
After that, she said, Kesler tickled her leg, and she told him to stop, which he did, and she “kind of (laughed) it off.” She said he also put his own legs against hers between the coffee table and couch. According to the complainant, she dozed off while the movie played, and when she woke up, her legs were apart, in a different position from the one in which she’d fallen asleep. Kesler’s foot was rubbing her crotch, and her foot was on his penis. Kesler, she said, was awake.
“I woke up, I was in shock,” she said, “I kind of just sat there for a second and just tried processing what was happening.” She said she moved her foot, adjusted her leg and said, “No, no, no. I don’t want to do this. This isn’t happening.” When she got up from the couch, she said, Kesler got up as well, grabbed her hand, and said, “No, you’re OK here.”
She said the rest of the house was asleep, and she went upstairs to tell the other teenage friend in the home about the incident. The friend offered support, the complainant said. She told Kesler’s daughter that she felt sick, wanted to go home and needed help leaving the house because of the security system. Another friend and her mother picked up the complainant and took her back to the original party — the one she’d left after midnight — at around 4 a.m.
She said she told friends about the incident immediately after she alleged it occurred. On Jan. 2, she told her older brother, who told their mother. She filed the initial police report that day.
Kesler’s attorneys argued, among other things, that inconsistencies in the complainant’s recounting of the night to law enforcement and a local children’s advocacy center should’ve stopped the case from going to trial. Barron disagreed.
“The circumstances of her foot where it was, and the circumstances of where the defendant’s foot was, and the motions of both of those do leave the Court at a probable cause standard, meaning probably a crime was committed, and probably the defendant committed it,” Barron said.
The trial’s start date has not yet been set. Kesler, a native of Livonia, Mich., played for two NHL teams — the Vancouver Canucks and Anaheim Ducks — from 2003-19 and was a member of the 2010 and 2014 U.S. Olympic teams.
The Michigan Amateur Hockey Association, the sport’s governing body in the state, suspended Kesler from all MAHA and USA Hockey activities, MAHA president Tom Berry told The Athletic in October. Kesler was in his third season as a head coach with the Little Caesars AAA Hockey Club, an elite Detroit-area youth program.
“Ryan emphatically denies the allegations and is completely innocent of the charges. The charges are baseless, and he is prepared to fight them vigorously in court,” his attorney Robert Morad told The Athletic on Oct. 27. “As the legal process begins, we ask for respect for his privacy and for the integrity of the judicial system. We are confident, when all the facts and circumstances are presented, that he will be fully exonerated.”
Cross-examination by defense attorney Neil Rockind was contentious at several points, with Meyer objecting multiple times to his cutting off of the complainant’s answers. After adjournment, as the two exited the courtroom, they had another heated exchange.
“I’m going to compare the number of ‘I don’t knows’ to the number of ‘likes,’ Rockind said to Kesler as the two were leaving, a dig at the complainant’s pattern of speech.
“She’s 17,” Meyer said.
“I’m talking to my client,” Rockind said. “It’s a lie. The case is a lie.”
The situation devolved from there, with Rockind raising his voice enough to prompt a courtroom staffer to intervene. “I’ve had three (teenagers),” Rockind said to Meyer. “You’ve had none.”