{"id":333591,"date":"2025-12-06T13:24:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T13:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/333591\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T13:24:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T13:24:12","slug":"ex-nhl-player-from-michigan-headed-to-trial-for-alleged-sexual-assault-of-girl-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/333591\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-NHL player from Michigan headed to trial for alleged sexual assault of girl, 16"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former NHL center from Michigan is headed to trial. <\/p>\n

According to The Athletic<\/a>, Ryan Kesler of Livonia will face two misdemeanor counts of criminal sexual conduct in the fourth degree. <\/p>\n

Kesler is accused of making contact sexually with a 16-year-old girl \u201cthrough force or coercion and\/or (had) reason to know the victim was physically helpless,\u201d according to a complaint acquired by USA Today. <\/a><\/p>\n

He has pleaded not guilty and denied the allegations. <\/p>\n

\u201cRyan is innocent and has done nothing wrong,\u201d Kesler\u2019s attorneys Robert Morad and Neil Rockind said in a statement. \u201c…Ryan has been unwavering from day one because he\u2019s telling the truth. He\u2019s prepared to see this through and is confident his name will be fully cleared.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Athletic, the now 17-year-old victim alleges she fell asleep on a couch beside Kesler at a New Year\u2019s Eve party at his home. When she woke up, Kesler\u2019s foot was allegedly rubbing against her crotch. <\/p>\n

The alleged victim, now 17 year old, is a female friend of Kelser\u2019s daughter. She spent two hours on the stand this week, according to USA Today. <\/p>\n

Kesler, who played for some of Michigan\u2019s elite youth programs like Compuware, Honeybaked and Little Caesars, played 15 seasons in the NHL with the Vancouver Canucks and Anaheim Ducks. <\/p>\n

He appeared in 1,001 NHL games and finished his career with 258 goals and 573 points. <\/p>\n

He also represented the United States in the Winter Olympics twice but hasn\u2019t played in the NHL since 2019. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NHL center from Michigan is headed to trial. According to The Athletic, Ryan Kesler of Livonia will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[168643,385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-333591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-168643","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}