Home-invasion rapist gets 63-year prison term
Birk assaulted woman at gunpoint as son slept
Michael Birk committed crimes so extreme, they seemed like scenes from a horror movie.
In June, Birk, 42, broke into the southwest Milwaukee home of a woman he didn’t know as she slept, then bound her and raped her repeatedly at gunpoint as her teenage son slept upstairs. When he left around dawn, he took her debit card and cellphone.
Police tracked Birk down via the victim’s phone, which was found at a friend’s garage where Birk had been staying. It was in a backpack that also had zip ties, beer and sex toys.
Video from a bank where Birk tried to use the victim’s debit card led to his arrest a day later.
Then from jail, Birk tried to hire someone to kill the victim for $10,000 and drew up a detailed map to her home with information about when and where she worked and when she walked her dog.
On Wednesday, a judge sentenced Birk to 38 years in prison for the armed sexual assault and a consecutive term of 25 years for conspiracy to commit first-degree intentional homicide. The sentence totals 63 years, effectively a life sentence
“What could be a worse nightmare?” Circuit Judge Jeffrey Wagner asked, in reference to the victim’s experience.
During her statement to the court, the victim, a 55-year-old professional manager, took the witness stand so she could look at Birk.
“You made the choice,” she said. “You, Michael Birk,” to break into her home through a kitchen window, creep into her room wearing a mask and leather gloves, blow smoke from crack cocaine into her face and threaten to kill her if she didn’t stay quiet
“But I made the choice to not let you know my son was upstairs, to fight like hell and try to get some evidence in case I made it out alive,” she said.
She engaged Birk in conversation throughout the ordeal, learning he was in the midst of a divorce, had a son and other details that helped identify him as her assailant after his arrest.
“And I do have the choice to heal and protect my family,” she said, before calling Birk “an evil, angry bastard” who should remain behind bars so he “can never touch another female again.”
Three of the woman’s sisters and her oldest son — not the one who was home that night — also told Wagner how the crimes affected their entire extended family.
Birk apologized in court and said he was dealing with deaths of his grandparents, father and three friends as well as his nasty divorce at the time while abusing illicit drugs and alcohol.
“I was in a deep, dark hole,” he said. Birk was also ordered to pay nearly $30,000 in restitution to the victim, her son and the state crime victims compensation fund.