Joseph Bruneau is banned from campus. Courtesy | joebruneau.com
Joseph Robert Bruneau, banned from campus by Hillsdale College Security, now faces two additional charges of larceny and resisting an officer following his Oct. 12 arrest for domestic violence.
The original police report for his domestic violence charge states Bruneau’s wife showed up to the sheriff’s office prior to his arrest with “a large bruise on the left side of her chin/jawline area” and told an officer she is “in fear for her life,” according to the report.
College security sent an email on Oct. 9 to faculty, staff, and students warning them to call 911 if approached by Bruneau. If Bruneau returns to campus, he will be trespassing, according to college security.
When Michigan State Police arrested Bruneau on the morning of Oct. 12, an additional larceny charge was in place concerning an incident that took place at Hillsdale College on Oct. 2.
According to a document obtained by The Collegian, a 13-year-old boy was in Howard Music Hall “sitting on a bench outside of his music instructor’s office waiting for his lesson when he noticed a man sitting across from him.”
The man was Bruneau, who talked to the boy about how he had found a phone left on a bench with a driver’s license and an ID card in its case. Bruneau told the boy he “was going to take the phone with him so it didn’t fall into the wrong hands,” according to the document.
A Hillsdale student reported to campus security the following day that his phone disappeared after he left it on a bench in Howard during a lesson.
The same document includes a transcript of an interview that took place in the jail, where Bruneau claimed “he was intending to give [the phone] back to the owner” but it was “not in Michigan.”
Bruneau’s court date for the domestic violence charge is set for Feb. 7, 2024, while no date has been set for the larceny charge.
In 2018, Bruneau sued the City of Hillsdale and several officers with the Hillsdale Police Department.
“Bruneau alleges that on Sept. 4, 2014, the Defendants repeatedly tasered him while he was being treated at the Hillsdale Community Health Center… even though he was restrained, with his wrists and ankles strapped securely to the gurney,” read documents obtained by The Collegian.
A district judge dismissed the case because the alleged events took place four years prior to the filing of any charges.
Also in 2018, Bruneau filed a lawsuit accusing his former school, Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, of discrimination concerning his alleged disability status.
Aquinas expelled him in 1990 and had also issued a “no trespass” order against him in February 2016 after an incident on campus.
In its response to the lawsuit, the school said Bruneau “interrupted a class in progress” and “engaged in harassing, disruptive, erratic, and intimidating conduct toward several students.”
After security personnel asked Bruneau to leave campus, Bruneau “pulled a rock out of his bag and indicated it was a weapon.”
Bruneau also “pulled out a razor and was dry shaving his face in front of the officers, made sexually suggestive and intimidating remarks to the officers, and started taking off clothes.”
The Grand Rapids Police Department arrived at the scene and arrested Bruneau for criminal trespass. They also conducted a search of Bruneau’s bags, which were found to contain “women’s underwear, sexual toys, and bondage paraphernalia.”
As part of the lawsuit, the defense team representing Aquinas College found four past criminal convictions: “a 2001 conviction for felony assault of a police officer in Ohio; a 2000 guilty plea and conviction for criminal sexual conduct fourth degree; a 2014 guilty plea and conviction for disturbing the peace; and the 2016 guilty plea and conviction for trespass.”
Bruneau alleges that the criminal sexual conduct charge in 2000 arose from “spanking a man and telling him to get back to work,” and not an act of violence.
The defense also found an additional charge for “malicious destruction of property” after Bruneau “drove a vehicle through the window of a Honda dealership and smashed property with a baseball bat,” according to the lawsuit. The jury in that case found the plaintiff not guilty “because he was insane at the time.”
A review of Bruneau’s medical records also found assault charges in Canada. A hospital record from Jan. 24, 2020 states he admitted to “head-butting a constable” in an attempt to avoid paying a fare for public transportation and also “got into an altercation with someone after confronting them about bringing their bike on the public transportation.”
