C.O. charged with sexual assault gets house arrest awaiting trial
TRENTON » A longtime Mercer County corrections officer and union leader accused of anally raping two women will be released from jail on electronically monitored house arrest.
Donald J. Ryland, 44, of Hamilton, has been incarcerated since his Oct. 15 arrest but is expected to return home Thursday after authorities place a monitoring device on his ankle.
The state initially filed a motion seeking to keep Ryland locked up without bail on pretrial detention, but prosecutors sang a different tune Wednesday afternoon after Ryland’s defense attorneys questioned whether the state had probable cause to arrest and charge him in connection with both sexual assaults.
“He can’t be in two places at the same time,” defense attorney Jeff Ziegelheim said of his client Don Ryland during Wednesday’s detention hearing, adding he has provided prosecutors with surveillance footage that proves Ryland was home during the time when one of the assaults occurred.
Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor Renee Robeson argued that it is possible Ryland could have left his home during the late-night hours of Oct. 11 and said the state will need to perform a “forensic investigation” on the video to verify the authenticity of its contents. She also argued that the state has probable cause in its double sexual assault case against Ryland and described Ryland as a “risk to the community,” but Robeson in the end backed down from pursuing pretrial detention.
With Ryland agreeing to be placed on electronically monitored home detention and providing the state with a sample of his DNA, Robeson said the state is satisfied with those terms, saying house arrest places a check on Ryland that could reasonably prevent him from inflicting any harm upon others while his sex assault cases play out in court.
Case background
Ryland, a married father and longtime Mercer County corrections officer who serves as president of PBA Local 167, has been charged with anally raping two women in Trenton’s West Ward, one at Cadwalader Park on Oct. 6 and another Oct. 12 on Riverside Avenue.
The victim in the Oct. 6 assault reported she entered the suspect’s vehicle near South Broad Street and was driven to Cadwalader Park, where Ryland allegedly sexually assaulted her after she got out of his vehicle, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Trenton Police Officer Laurel Rogers arrested Ryland on Oct. 15 and charged him with second-degree sexual assault by force or coercion after the victim of the Oct. 6 attack provided police with the license plate information of the suspect’s vehicle and identified Ryland in a line-up as her attacker.
The victim in the Oct. 12 assault reported she entered into a vehicle driven by an unknown black male “in order to drink alcohol” and arrived in an unknown area near water, where she and Ryland exited the vehicle and approached the porch of a residence. At that point, Ryland is accused of grabbing the victim by the throat, jerking her around, manhandling her to the ground and anally penetrating her, according to court documents.
The victim of the Oct. 12 assault participated in a photo array, narrowing down her identification to Ryland and “another individual,” according to the affidavit.
Authorities didn’t publicly identify the “other individual” but located him, interviewed him, and cleared him of any involvement, according to court records.
The probable cause affidavit said police charged Ryland with the Oct. 12 assault because he matched a physical description and drove a car that matched the description of the suspect’s vehicle. The location of the attack and the nature of the rape was also “consistent” with the Oct. 6 sexual assault case against Ryland.
Defense counters
The Trentonian has previously reported how the Oct. 12 rape victim failed to identify Ryland as her attacker during a photo array, and Ziegelheim emphasized that point Wednesday during his oral arguments before Mercer County Superior Court Judge Robert Billmeier.
Ziegelheim said surveillance footage shows Ryland arriving at his Hamilton Township residence about 9:35 p.m. Oct. 11, parking his car on the side street that abuts his house. Ryland on the video is seen going in and out of the house and placing trash outside, according to Ziegelheim, who did not play the video in open court. He said Ryland’s SUV — a 2011 Chevrolet Equinox — remains parked on the street overnight and that the video shows Ryland going back to his vehicle about 6:35 a.m. Oct. 12.
Trenton Police responded to the Riverside Avenue assault at 12:24 a.m. Oct. 12, according to the affidavit. Police charged Ryland with first-degree kidnapping, firstdegree aggravated sexual assault and third-degree aggravated assault in connection with the Oct. 12 incident several days after they charged him with the Oct. 6 sexual assault.
The victim of the Oct. 12 assault did not positively identify Ryland as her attacker during the photo array, and she appeared to be under the influence of drugs or on her way to withdrawal during that phase of the investigation, according to Ziegelheim, who had watched a video recording of the identification procedure.
The victim also disclosed that she drank a “full bottle of vodka” prior to the assault and that she got into the suspect’s car to get more drinks, Ziegelheim said. He said his client does not drink alcoholic beverages.
The victim said she touched the suspect’s cellphone, but Ziegelheim said the state has presented no evidence of the victim’s fingerprints being found on Ryland’s phone.
Surveillance footage from the Riverside Avenue area depicts a male running to a vehicle and fleeing the area and the victim later getting up and looking for help. Prosecutors say the fleeing male could be Ryland, but Ziegelheim said it is “more probable” that the fleeing male “is not Officer Ryland.”
Ryland drives an SUV, but the victim of the Oct. 12 assault described the suspect’s vehicle as a “small, four-door car,” according to Ziegelheim.
The defense attorney described the state’s case in the following terms: The suspect who committed the Oct. 6 rape must also be responsible for the Oct. 12 rape, because if Ryland “committed one, he must have committed both.”
Ziegelheim, however, said he is using the inverse logic that if Ryland has ironclad alibi proof he did not commit the Oct. 12 assault, then he definitely did not commit the Oct. 6 attack.
The victims of the Oct. 6 and Oct. 12 assaults were both picked up by a suspect in the South Broad Street area and driven up Route 29 into Trenton’s West Ward, according to prosecutors. Both victims described their attacker as being a black male with little-to-no hair, and Assistant Prosecutor Robeson said that while the Oct. 12 victim failed to identify Ryland as her attacker, she said the man who the victim had identified