An American real estate agent has admitted touching inside and outside a young man’s shorts during a sexual assault in the sauna at Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel.
Bryan McNeill (55), of K Street, Boston, Massachusetts, had lodged €30,000, allowing him to return to the United States in March.
He pleaded guilty when he came back for his hearing in Dublin District Court on Monday.
Judge Paula Murphy heard the businessman had “misread the situation” until the victim stood up and told him to stop.
Sentencing was adjourned until Wednesday.
Det Gda Cathal Ryan told the court how the injured party, a 19-year-old college student, was staying at the five-star hotel with a family member and used the gym and afterwards went to the sauna.
He later reported to gardaí that the older man sexually assaulted him in the sauna.
In his statement, the student said McNeill was rubbing his shoulder and upper torso with his right hand and “slid” his hands under his shorts to grope his buttocks from within his shorts and then, with his left hand, grabbed his private parts outside the shorts.
McNeill was identified as a suspect and he gave gardaí an account claiming it was a consensual interaction, but the complainant stated it was not consensual.
The court heard McNeill was due to return to the US a day after the incident, but attended the Garda station and remained in the jurisdiction for several days pending the Director of Public Prosecutions’ decision that he be charged.
Det Gda Ryan said McNeill had no prior convictions in Ireland or any other jurisdiction.
The garda agreed with Oisín Clarke, defending, that McNeill was completely co-operative and had changed his travel plans as a result of the investigation.
The student came to the hearing to read out his victim impact statement.
“I was just enjoying the luxury of being in the hotel and having a general conversation; I did not initiate what happened,” he told the court.
He said he was in shock afterwards and said it took weeks to process what happened. He could not talk about it when his parents asked how he was.
He said his family thought he was happier before and he was more irritable now, and he said he was not ready to face what happened, but wanted it to disappear.
“I do wonder why this was done to me. I am friendly and social, but definitely more worried than I used to be,” he told Judge Murphy.
He said he became withdrawn and believed the assault was partly a reason for failing a college exam during summer.
In court, married businessman McNeill nodded to confirm he was pleading guilty to sexual assault.
He did not address the court, and his husband provided a letter confirming McNeill’s health had declined due to stress and he had suffered from vertigo since the incident.
Mr Clarke said his client came from humble beginnings and was the first in his family to achieve a third-level education and “dragged himself up by his bootstraps” from a young age, eventually becoming a real estate agent.
The barrister said saunas had a certain resonance within the accused’s community.
“He thought something was going on that wasn’t, and he acted completely inappropriately, and he apologises unreservedly,” Mr Clarke said.
McNeill asked his barrister to express remorse on his behalf.
Mr Clarke noted that the complainant had not yet attended counselling costing €1,200; McNeill was willing to pay, along with a donation to charity or an additional sum to the student.
Mr Clarke furnished a High Court judgment from a more serious, but unrelated, sexual assault case, which allowed the Probation of Offenders Act, sparing the accused in that case a criminal conviction.
The barrister asked Judge Murphy to exercise that discretion in McNeill’s case because a conviction could have “catastrophic consequences” for him in the US in terms of his livelihood and other features of his life.
Judge Murphy adjourned the case.
