An OnlyFans content creator who pleaded guilty to the accidental death of a 55-year-old Escondido man who’d paid her to engage in fetish acts was sentenced Monday to four years in custody.
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Michaela Rylaarsdam, 32, pleaded guilty last month to a sole count of involuntary manslaughter in the 2023 incident that ended when Michael Dale — who had duct tape on his mouth and a plastic bag over his head — became unresponsive on the floor of the bedroom he rented in an Escondido home.
The San Bernardino County woman recorded at least some of the encounter, and eight short video clips were presented during her preliminary hearing last year in Vista Superior Court. An Escondido police investigator said in a court filing that the recording was supposed to be content for her OnlyFans site.
The four-year sentence, which will be served in county jail, was not a surprise; it was agreed upon when Rylaarsdam pleaded guilty. Her attorney, Daniel Cohen, said his client gave a “heartfelt” statement in court Monday, apologizing and taking responsibility for what happened.
“She’s felt bad about this from the beginning,” Cohen said. “Even before the charges, she was seeking therapy as a result of this.”
Nearly two years passed before prosecutors filed a criminal case and initially charged her with murder.
At Rylaarsdam’s preliminary hearing, Deputy District Attorney David Jarman said Dale had a plastic bag over his head for at least 8 minutes shortly before a 911 call. At some point, Jarman said, Dale had four layers on his head — black duct tape, a plastic bag, plastic wrap and pink duct tape.
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The first police officer to arrive on scene found Rylaarsdam performing CPR on Dale, who was wearing sweatpants and shiny black boots and was wrapped in clingy plastic from about the thighs down. His arms were over his head, bound with duct tape.
Testimony indicated Dale found Rylaarsdam online a few weeks before the encounter and paid to communicate with her. In their communications, he asked her to glue boots to his feet, which authorities allege she did during their encounter. He also repeatedly requested that she glue his eyes shut, which she did not do.
The judge who presided over the preliminary hearing found that enough evidence existed in the case to go to trial but noted that the standard at a preliminary hearing is a much lower bar than proof beyond a reasonable doubt as required at trial.
Judge Daniel Link said at the time that Rylaarsdam “did not intend, necessarily, to kill (Dale),” and wondered aloud whether the case was one of second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter. “When does bondage and fetish turn into implied malice?” he asked.
To support second-degree murder, prosecutors must prove a defendant had implied malice — that the person intentionally committed an act, and the natural and probable consequences of that act were dangerous to life. Involuntary manslaughter is explained in California jury instructions as “an unlawful killing resulting from a willful act committed without intent to kill and without conscious disregard of the risk to human life.”
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