Man charged with 2000 rape of Penn State student makes initial court appearance
A man accused of raping a Penn State student at knifepoint in 2000 at a golf course near State College made his initial court appearance Tuesday and passed on his first chance to challenge the evidence against him.
Kurt A. Rillema, 54, of Michigan, attended his preliminary arraignment remotely. He is serving a 10- to 15-year sentence in a Michigan state prison after he pleaded no contest to criminal sexual conduct in a similar 1999 case at a golf course there.
District Judge Casey McClain set bail Tuesday at $100,000. Rillema waived his preliminary hearing and his next court appearance is scheduled for July 15. A message left Tuesday with defense attorney Steve Trialonas was not immediately returned.
Centre County prosecutors charged Rillema in 2023 with the rape of a 19-year-old at the Penn State Golf Courses. She was running when she said Rillema raped and beat her in a wooded area near the 18th hole of the Blue Course.
According to her ongoing lawsuit, Rillema was a “complete stranger.”
Penn State police learned in 2004 that DNA collected from a sexual assault kit matched DNA collected in the Michigan case, but investigators went without an identified suspect for nearly two decades.
Prosecutors said advances in genetic genealogy gave investigators the break they needed. After submitting evidence to a private forensic DNA company, investigators believed the Michigan assault was carried out by Rillema or one of his two brothers. They later collected a Styrofoam coffee cup Rillema discarded and said the DNA matched.
He was arrested at his home in the Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield. Investigators said he was an avid golfer and owner of a construction company who had no prior criminal history.
In Centre County, he’s facing felony counts of rape, sexual assault and aggravated indecent assault as well as four misdemeanors. In Michigan, he’s first eligible for parole in April 2033.