A Canadian man police said drove his motorcycle from
Saskatchewan to Gilroy in hopes of having sex with a 17-year-old
girl was sentenced to one year in county jail.
A Canadian man police said drove his motorcycle from Saskatchewan to Gilroy in hopes of having sex with a 17-year-old girl was sentenced to one year in county jail.
Michael DeBruyn, 25, and the girl met when the girl was 13 on an online social networking website, but their contact wasn’t continuous over the next four years, according to police. The initial contact wasn’t sexual in nature, and only in the last few months did the two begin exchanging sexually graphic text messages, police said.
DeBruyn, a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, pleaded no contest to one felony count of contacting and communicating with a minor with knowledge and intent to commit a specified crime and one felony count of distributing or exhibiting harmful matter to a minor. He also pleaded no contest to one misdemeanor charge of possessing or controlling matter depicting a person under 18 engaging in or simulating sexual conduct, which was reduced from a felony charge.
At the sentencing hearing at the South County Courthouse in Morgan Hill, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Arroyo reduced the two felonies to misdemeanor charges and sentenced DeBruyn to a year in jail. He has already spent 248 days in jail so he will be released after another four months, said District Attorney spokeswoman Amy Cornell.
Upon his release, DeBruyn will have to register as a sex offender, she said. Whether he will be deported is up to federal authorities, she said.
DeBruyn was originally charged with two related additional felony counts and faced a maximum sentence of five years and eight months in prison, Cornell said. He pleaded no contest to three of his five charges as part of a negotiated deal with prosecutors.
On leave from military duty, DeBruyn showed up in town April 10 at a Gilroy High School event and tried to contact the girl, police said. About 7:15 a.m. April 11, DeBruyn showed up at the girl’s house, but she was not home, police said. The parents then called police.
Police concluded through unspecified evidence that DeBruyn had come to Gilroy to have sex with the girl and arrested him. DeBruyn was also in possession of child pornography at the time, police said.
