A California man who pleaded guilty raping his intoxicated 16-year-old sister will spend less than four months in jail after a judge sentenced him to probation.
Nolan Bruder, 20 of Crescent City, pleaded guilty to rape of an intoxicated person on May 17. As part of the plea agreement, charges of unlawful intercourse, incest and providing a minor with drugs were dropped. The recommended sentence was six years in prison and no probation, Del Norte (California) District Attorney Dale Trigg said.
Instead, Judge William H. Follett sentenced Bruder to three years, but granted probation. He will serve 240 days, at half time, in the county jail, according to Trigg’s post on Facebook.
“This is the most unnerving and unsettling sentence I’ve seen a court impose,” Trigg said in an interview with McClatchy. Trigg has been a lawyer for 18 years and district attorney for three. “This one bothered me. ... I just think it’s absolutely shocking to my conscience as a prosecutor when you have a crime that as egregious as this.”
Bruder was accused of giving his sister, who had repeatedly said she did not want to have sex with him, “dabs” of marijuana until she didn’t even recognize him, according to Trigg. Bruder confessed to the crime on videotape and did not dispute the district attorney’s version of events in court, Trigg said.
Trigg said the parents “lined up behind the son,” writing letters of support to the court and claiming that their daughter was complicit. The girl never said that to law enforcement or in court, Trigg said.
The judge said in court that the victim took off her own clothes and was not unconscious. Follett also questioned whether a a jury would convict Bruder, despite his confession. Follett said the stigma of the conviction and mandatory sex offender registration were sufficient deterrents, according to Trigg.
“This is a story that needs to be told. I feel like I do the people’s business here. People have a right to know what’s happening in their court,” Trigg said.
Del Norte County is in northwestern California, bordering Oregon and the Pacific Ocean. It is not far from where former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, but sentenced to six months in jail. That case drew national headlines and led to a change in California law to bring sentencing for rape by intoxication in line with sentencing for rape by force.
The new sentencing guideline, which went into effect on Jan. 1, did not apply to Bruder’s case, which took place before. Assembly Bill 2888 prohibits “a court from granting probation or suspending the execution or imposition of a sentence if a person is convicted of rape, sodomy, penetration with a foreign object, or oral copulation if the victim was either unconscious or incapable of giving consent due to intoxication.”
“I felt like the reasons for that law would certainly apply here and would lead a judge to impose a sentence,” Trigg said.
Trigg said that’s difficult to successfully appeal a sentence, but “it’s not impossible.” He said he has been working with experts in that area to explore his options.
