(Note: The opinion of the Michigan Court of Appeals, which serves as the primary source for this article, remains subject to revision until its final publication in the Michigan Appeals Reports.)

MENOMINEE — The Michigan Court of Appeals has upheld the prison term for a former Menominee County sheriff’s deputy convicted in 2024 of sexually abusing a student while serving as a school resource officer.

A Menominee County jury in March 2024 had found 62-year-old Brian William Helfert guilty of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a weapon. He was sentenced in the 41st Circuit Court in Menominee County to nine to 15 years in prison, with credit for 757 days already served.

In an opinion released Thursday, the Appellate Court found the trial court adequately justified Helfert’s prison term being an upward departure from the sentencing guidelines.

According to the appellate opinion, Helfert worked as a police officer at several schools in Menominee County. In 2006, he began tutoring a sophomore student.

When the student reached the 11th grade, Helfert — while wearing his police uniform and carrying a holstered firearm — began coercing the student into sexual acts under false pretenses, according to the court. The opinion states Helfert also provided the student with gifts and money.

The acts continued through the student’s graduation, after which the student moved into Helfert’s home, the court said.

During the trial, two additional former students testified Helfert had also sexually abused them. One claimed the abuse occurred about 40 times. Helfert has not been prosecuted on those claims.

After Helfert’s conviction, his minimum sentencing guidelines range was calculated at 29 to 57 months, based on a prior record variable score of zero and an offense variable score of 175.

At his sentencing, Helfert successfully challenged several offense variable assessments, reducing his total offense variable score to 125 points. However, the trial court denied his request to reduce the score for offense variable seven, aggravated physical abuse, from 50 points to zero.

Helfert’s overall sentencing score remained at 125 points, and his minimum sentencing guidelines range remained the same as well.

In his sentence, the trial court also considered Helfert’s repeated and escalated conduct, as well as his use of his uniform, weapon and vehicle to facilitate the abuse. Based on those factors, the court made an upward departure from the advisory sentencing guidelines in giving Helfert nine to 15 years in prison.

On appeal, Helfert argued the trial court improperly scored offense variable seven, which is based on whether a victim was subjected to sadism, torture, excessive brutality or conduct designed to substantially increase the victim’s fear and anxiety during the offense.

The Court of Appeals disagreed with Helfert, writing that his actions were designed to substantially increase the victim’s fear and anxiety.

The court wrote that Helfert was “a sworn law enforcement officer, who for years is assigned as a school safety officer and school resource officer,” and that he “regularly prey(ed) upon an adolescent for about two years when the victim (was) in high school, and commit(ed) multiple acts of sexual abuse, while on school property, in the school building in full uniform and armed with a weapon, in a private place, against the student, all under the guise of helping, mentoring and tutoring the student.”

The appellate court further noted that even if offense variable seven had been scored at zero, Helfert would not have been entitled to resentencing because his placement within the sentencing guidelines grid would have remained unchanged.

Helfert also argued the trial court improperly departed upward from the advisory sentencing guidelines.

The Court of Appeals rejected that claim, noting that Michigan’s sentencing guidelines are advisory and trial courts may depart from them when the departure is adequately justified.

The appellate court concluded the trial court properly explained that the sentencing guidelines did not sufficiently account for Helfert’s long-term pattern of grooming, manipulation and abuse and was therefore justified in the increased sentencing.

Finally, Helfert argued the trial court improperly considered gender when it stated he targeted “vulnerable boys, never girls, vulnerable boys.”

But the Court of Appeals said when considered in the context of Helfert’s case, it believes “the trial court was commenting on the fact that the defendant’s activities in mentoring teenagers lacked any altruistic intent because, rather than mentoring both boys and girls alike, defendant mentored only students that fit within his target group of victims, i.e. minor teenage boys.”

In another case, Helfert pleaded no contest to first-degree criminal sexual conduct and was sentenced in October 2024 to 40 to 60 months in prison. That sentence is being served concurrently with the nine- to 15-year prison term he received in the case involving second-degree criminal sexual conduct while armed, for which he is currently incarcerated.

According to Michigan court records, Helfert previously pleaded guilty in a separate case to one count of accosting a child for immoral purposes in December 2020. Helfert is listed on the Michigan Sex Offender Registry.