Former Paramedic Guilty of Molesting Girl in Ambulance

ARENAC COUNTY, Mich. — An Arenac County, Mich., jury convicted a former paramedic on Thursday of molesting a 15-year-old patient during her transport to a Standish hospital.

The jury found David Spresny, 42, guilty of third-degree criminal sexual conduct, a 15-year felony involving penetration. Jurors dismissed three other charges against Spresny, two involving digital penetration and a third, fondling.

Jurors made no comment about their unanimous decision. Arenac Circuit Judge Ronald Bergeron ordered Spresny’s bond revoked and his escort to the county jail. The career paramedic will await sentencing there, though no date has been set.

Spresny’s conviction, near midnight Thursday, stems from his arrest last July when an Alger teen complained she’d been assaulted while she lay injured, strapped to a backboard, in his ambulance.

Spresny, by his own admission Thursday, stripped the teen of her bikini in the ambulance. The reason, he said, was to clean sand from her body and raise her body temperature.

Spresny’s conviction concluded a four-day trial that saw a dozen witnesses testify for and against the Standish man.

It was Spresny who dominated testimony Thursday as prosecutors and his defense attorney questioned him for four hours. The defendant was the last witness jurors heard before moving to deliberate his fate.

Spresny’s testimony focused on the conflicting reports he gave investigators. In taped interviews with police last year, played in court this week, Spresny at first denied even touching the alleged victim inappropriately. Later he asserted to investigators he must “certainly” have penetrated her with his finger.

Spresny explained Thursday that he presumed he must have inadvertently touched his patient, inside her crotch, while checking for lower back injuries and wiping sand from her pubic area.

But prosecutors painted a different picture, attacking Spresny’s explanation for changing his story.

“The defendant himself admitted to four different police officers that his finger, thumb or both entered (the victim’s) vagina,” Richard Vollbach, assistant Arenac prosecutor, told the court.

“Does a person ‘accidentally’ do that?

“Mr. Spresny is not a rookie paramedic,” Vollbach continued. “His own co-workers say he’s a senior paramedic. He doesn’t make mistakes. He knew exactly what he was doing.”

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