charges<\/a>, which were filed against him on Oct. 23 over events on Jan. 1, according to court records.<\/p>\nAccording to the criminal complaint, both counts allege that Kesler engaged in sexual contact with a 16-year-old child \u201cthrough force or coercion and\/or (had) reason to know the victim was physically helpless.<\/p>\n
The alleged victim is now 17 and was a friend of Kesler\u2019s eldest daughter.<\/p>\n
During more than two hours on the stand, she told the court that, after falling asleep on a couch next to Kesler in the hours following a New Year\u2019s Eve party at his home, she awoke to find his foot rubbing her crotch and her foot touching his erect penis over a pair of shorts.<\/p>\n
Kesler\u2019s attorneys argued, among other things, that inconsistencies in the accuser\u2019s recounting of the night to law enforcement and a local children\u2019s advocacy center should\u2019ve stopped the case from going to trial.<\/p>\n
\u201cRyan emphatically denies the allegations and is completely innocent of the charges. The charges are baseless and he is prepared to fight them vigorously in court,\u201d his attorney Robert Morad told The Athletic on Oct. 27. \u201cAs the legal process begins, we ask for respect for his privacy and for the integrity of the judicial system. We are confident, when all the facts and circumstances are presented, that he will be fully exonerated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kesler, a native of Livonia, Mich., played for two NHL teams \u2014 the Vancouver Canucks and Anaheim Ducks \u2014 from 2003-19 and was a member of the 2010 and 2014 U.S. Olympic teams.<\/p>\n
This story will be updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. \u2014 The criminal case against Ryan Kesler, a former NHL center charged with two misdemeanor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[766,49,48,448,82,452],"class_list":{"0":"post-325860","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-anaheim-ducks","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-vancouver-canucks"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}