Sufficiency of the evidence to support torture & CSC I convictions; MCL 750.85(1); “Severe mental pain or suffering” (MCL 750.85(2)(d)); CSC I under MCL 750.520b(1)(c); People v Waltonen

The court held that the evidence was sufficient for a rational juror to find that the victim (NG) “suffered severe mental pain and suffering” due to defendant-Klyk’s “threats and that the threats satisfied MCL 750.85(2)(d)(iii) and (iv). As such, the evidence was sufficient to support Klyk’s torture conviction.” It further held that the evidence was sufficient to support his CSC I conviction under MCL 750.520b(1)(c). He was also convicted of unlawful imprisonment, AWIGBH, and third-offense domestic violence. The record showed “NG was unable to recall at trial whether Klyk threatened her during the incident, but she thought she was going to die.” A police witness (W) “testified, and his body camera footage confirmed, that NG told him immediately after the incident that Klyk threatened to kill her and her ex-husband.” Another police witness (S) “testified that NG told her that Klyk threatened to kill NG while he assaulted her and that, afterward in the kitchen, Klyk ‘continued to tell her how much he hated her, and how much he wanted to kill her.’ In addition, the record shows that Klyk threatened the imminent death of NG’s ex-husband. NG testified that Klyk told her in the kitchen that she should not drop her daughters off at her ex-husband’s house because he was going to be ‘skinned’ and ‘dead in the mudroom.’ [S] corroborated NG’s testimony. [S] testified that NG told her that Klyk warned NG not to ‘bring her kids, daughters, back to their stepdad [sic] on the day that they usually do because she would find [him] dead in the garage or skinned alive.’” While the record did “not establish when NG was scheduled to drop her daughters off at their father’s house, it can be inferred from [S’s] testimony that NG and her ex-husband exchanged parenting time on a routine basis.” As to the CSC conviction, the record showed there was “a sufficient nexus between the sexual penetration and Klyk’s unlawful imprisonment of NG. Klyk sat on NG’s chest and pinned her arms to the bed before he slapped and strangled her. He then tied her left wrist to the bed using a strap, hit her with the broken clip of the right strap, and strangled her again. Thereafter, he untied her left wrist and directed her to lie at the side of the bed before he sexually assaulted her. Contrary to Klyk’s argument that his actions were separate, distinct acts, they constituted ‘a continuum of interrelated events.’” Affirmed.