My son and I got through it,” Wrubel said.Īs for Rillema’s arrest and charges, he said: “I’m just glad they got this guy. But he just lives with that, grateful that a false conviction - and the resulting consequences - were averted. Wrubel said there was a time that he worried about his tarnished reputation, concerned that his name had been muddied and realizing that Internet searches could turn up stories about it forever. But for the most part, he said, with two decades since it happened, “any hard feelings I had have waned.” These days, Wrubel said, he and his son occasionally talk about the arrest and interrogations.
MACOMB DAILY TRIAL
District Judge John Feikens agreed and granted summary judgment for a trial to proceed for the civil case, but the Michigan Court of Appeals disagreed, granting the sheriff and other defendants governmental immunity, then sent the case back to federal court and it was closed. District Court in Detroit against Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard and several of his deputies involved in the case, claiming violations of constitutional rights including false arrest due to no established probable cause. Through his attorney, Thomas Jakuc, Wrubel filed suit in 2000 in U.S. They had my photo and my name, too,” he said. Twin Lakes (Stephen Frye/MediaNews Group)Īnd though he wasn’t charged in the incident, Wrubel said his reputation was damaged because of what officials had distributed to the media. “They never said anything, never contacted me about it,” Wrubel said. Never did he expect that he was headed for some intense interrogation - where he steadfastly maintained his innocence. When Wrubel learned about the distributed sketch, he voluntarily went to the sheriff’s office to clear his name, knowing a very serious mistake had been made, he said.
A composite sketch based on information from the alleged victim was much less detailed, so it wasn’t distributed, court records state. That worker was a 15-year-old cashier who had seen Wrubel that day and thought he could be the rapist based on what the alleged victim had reportedly said.
Not long after it was reported, the sheriff’s office distributed to the media a composite sketch of what turned out to be Wrubel’s face - a sketch created with information from another employee at the golf club. They then hung out for awhile to get rain checks and to look around the clubhouse.Īt about that time, the alleged rape occurred. According to court records, on the day of the alleged sexual assault, Wrubel and his young son had been golfing there but got rained out partway through their game. Wrubel was an initial suspect in the crime Rillema has been charged with - the reported rape of a 22-year-old food stand employee at Twin Lakes Golf Club off of Rochester Road in Oakland Township on Sept.
MACOMB DAILY MOVIE
“But when it was happening, it was like a bad dream - what you would see in a movie or something.
He’s pretty much made peace with it, now believing law enforcement was “just doing their job,” he said. Nearly 24 years after his ordeal began with media blasts of his name, photograph and allegations that he was a rapist, Craig Wrubel of Macomb County said any hard feelings he once had against the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office because of the ordeal are long gone. With last Tuesday’s announcement that DNA evidence has linked West Bloomfield businessman Kurt Rillema to a reported 1999 rape on an Oakland County golf course, another man who was falsely accused recalled the nightmare he said he endured and the related federal lawsuit that ended up being dismissed.
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