Michigan man pleads no contest to 1999 rape at golf course

OAKLAND COUNTY, MI – The suspect in a 1999 rape at a Michigan golf course has pleaded no contest in Oakland County court, FOX 2 Detroit reports.

Kurt Alan Rillema, 52, pleaded no contest to third- and fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct related to the rape of a then-22-year-old woman on Sept. 6, 1999, at Twin Lakes Golf Club in Oakland Township. In exchange, charges of first- and second-degree CSC were dropped. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 15, the report said.

RELATED: DNA evidence links man to 1999, 2000 rapes at golf courses in Michigan, Pennsylvania

Rillema was arrested on April 17, 2023, in Oakland County after genetic genealogy testing linked him to the 1999 crime and the rape of a 19-year-old woman at a Penn State University golf course on July 27, 2000.

In both cases, the victim reported the assault and a DNA sample was taken but the suspect was not identified. The cases were linked in 2004 when the samples matched in a DNA database. In 2021, the Michigan sample was sent to a lab for genetic genealogy testing, which traced the genealogy back to the 1700s and narrowed the suspect list to three brothers. A DNA sample taken from a coffee cup used by Rillema matched the sample from the 1999 rape, according to investigators.