Deputy: Flagler rape suspect tells victim 'her body was not her body'

PALM COAST -- Deputies arrested a Palm Coast man Thursday following an investigation into claims he raped a woman last month when she refused his demands for "love and affection."

Michael Bruns, 27, of Pine Circle Drive, was charged with sexual battery and released late Thursday after posting a $150,000 bail, booking records show.

The victim, a 29-year-old Jacksonville woman whose name was redacted from charging affidavits, reported the alleged incident Dec. 27, eight days after she said Bruns sexually assaulted her in his home. She told investigators she laid motionless and cried, begging Bruns to stop as he raped her on his bed.

He ignored the woman's pleas for 10 minutes, according to her statement to deputies.

Afterward, Bruns told the woman "he was basically raping her because she did not want to have sex," the report states. She claimed Bruns has abused her in the past and she didn't immediately report the sexual battery because she was afraid of him.

The woman provided more details about the alleged incident in a Dec. 30 protective order she filed with the courts. The petition for protection indicated Bruns demanded to have sex with the woman during an argument. When the woman declined because she "was traumatized," Bruns punched a hole in the bathroom door. Moments later, he forced himself on her as she was sitting on the bed, she claimed in her petition.

When detectives questioned the victim on Jan. 3, according to reports, she said she and Bruns had been "arguing for weeks" and he was pressuring her for sex the night of the incident. When she rebuffed his demands for "love and affection," Bruns began yelling at her and breaking items in the home, she told the investigators. She indicated he threw a chair and knocked over a book shelf during his tirade and she began having a panic attack as she was cleaning up shattered glass from a broken beer bottle he threw against a wall in the bedroom.

Bruns calmed down after about 30 minutes but the woman said he got upset and started yelling again when she told him she didn't feel comfortable sleeping in the same room with him. That's when he punched the hole in the bathroom door, reports state.

The woman said she began "crying and shaking" and begged him to settle down so he wouldn't wake up children in the home.

"Just please stop, I'll do whatever you want, just stop yelling," she said to him, according to reports.

"You're right, you'll do whatever I want," Bruns responded, the charging document states.

That's when he pinned the woman down, ripped off her panties and raped her, according to the woman.

She said he stopped after about 10 minutes, stating "This isn't fun, I'm raping you," then left the bedroom and slept on the couch.

The woman showed deputies a text message Bruns sent to her the next morning that stated, "I hurt you a lot last night and I was so hurt I couldn't control my emotions. They just spilled out of (me) with rage and hurt, I was ready to kill myself last night. Idk how we got to this point, words can't describe how sorry I am for how I acted. I had no control over myself and I'm so sorry, which I know means nothing."

The woman told officers she and Bruns also had an argument Dec. 28, during which he told her that "her body was not her body and that she needed to learn to be 'submissive,'" reports state.

Investigators set up a controlled phone call where they recorded a conversation of the woman confronting Bruns about the alleged rape.

"In that moment, I felt like me as a person, like my soul, didn't matter," he said during the call. "And so I turned off yours mattering to me, in that moment."

Investigators, in their report, noted the woman was shaking and crying throughout the entire conversation with Bruns.

A circuit judge signed a warrant for Bruns' arrest Thursday, and bailiffs took him into custody as he appeared in court for a divorce hearing Thursday morning inside the Kim C. Hammond Justice Center in Bunnell.

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