WAILUKU — Saying that a girl’s testimony was believable, a judge found a man guilty of sexually assaulting the child while she was staying overnight at his residence in Waiehu.

Ryan Saffeels, 43, was convicted of three counts of third-degree sexual assault for inappropriately touching the girl in the early-morning hours of May 28, 2020.

Second Circuit Judge Peter Cahill delivered the verdict Monday afternoon, finding that the prosecution had proved the charges beyond a reasonable doubt, after hearing testimony from the girl and others in the nonjury trial.

The girl, who was 13 at the time and is related to Saffeels’ girlfriend, said she was staying over at the couple’s house while it was Saffeels’ birthday.

The night of May 27, 2020, she said she was trying to sleep in the bottom bunk while her cousin was watching television from the top bunk in his bedroom. She was facing the wall and about to fall asleep when Saffeels walked into the room and tried to ask her cousin for the remote control for the television, but he was sleeping, she said.

From a light in the hallway, she said she saw Saffeels’ shadow and heard his voice. He turned off the television and was standing in the room, then moved closer to her. She said she felt him rubbing her.

He also touched her over and under her clothing. When she began moving around, he took his hand away, stood by her head for a while, then left.

The girl testified she was shocked and confused.

“I can’t breathe because I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I was trying to keep myself together and not panic. I was just scared at that point because of what he said earlier.”

Earlier that day, Saffeels had asked her to go outside, she said. She was sitting on the ground while he sat in a chair when he said he had seen her lying on the floor in the bathroom earlier, she said. Then, she said Saffeels crouched down in front of her and tried to kiss her before she pushed him off.

After Saffeels left the bedroom that night, the girl said she got her phone and texted her mother to pick her up “because I didn’t feel safe.”

Her mother, who was at her job as a newspaper carrier, testified she immediately left her route to meet her daughter at a park in Waiehu. After talking to her daughter, she called police.

Officer Thomas Hifo, who was among officers responding to the call at about 2 a.m., said the girl “was really frantic and panicky, distraught.”

In footage from his body camera, she can be seen crying and saying, “I had to get out of there.”

In a recorded interview the next morning with Detective Oran Satterfield at the Wailuku Police Station, Saffeels said he gave the girl a hug that day but hadn’t gone in the bedroom and touched her.

Asked why she would say Saffeels touched her, he said, “That’s what I don’t understand.”

Later in the interview, Saffeels said his hand could have touched her “but it wasn’t a grope.”

In closing arguments, defense attorney Gerald Johnson said the girl’s account didn’t make sense, given the close configuration of the room and the presence of the boy in the top bunk.

Deputy Prosecutor Mike Kagami said, “Sexual assault of a minor, by its very nature, doesn’t make sense.”

In finding Saffeels guilty, Judge Cahill said Saffeels and his girlfriend corroborated portions of the girl’s testimony about what happened that day when there was tension between Saffeels and his girlfriend. There was testimony that the girlfriend threw a vacuum cleaner through a window and the girl found Saffeels’ phone in the toilet.

“This isn’t stuff being made up, although, frankly, it’s hard to believe,” Cahill said.

He said the girl, who now lives in Asheville, N.C., with her parents, twice began to cry after her lip and chin quivered as she was testifying.

“This is not stuff that can just be faked,” he said. “This is very, very real.”

“I find her testimony to be credible. I find her to be believable,” Cahill said.

He said the evidence that most strongly corroborated what she said was the video from the officer’s body camera. 

“This child was crying, distraught, not even able to speak,” Cahill said. “That is overwhelming evidence, in my mind.”

Saffeels, who is free after posting a $100,000 bail bond, is set to be sentenced Jan. 24.

Saffeels is the brother of former Maui Police Department officer Brandon Saffeels, 38, who was sentenced last week to 10 years in federal prison for attempting to have sexual contact with someone he believed was a 13-year-old girl last year.

* Lila Fujimoto can be reached at lfujimoto@mauinews.com.