Reality TV Star Who Assaulted Teen In Laguna Beach Sentenced: Police

LAGUNA BEACH, CA — A real estate developer and reality TV show star pleaded guilty Monday to sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl at his Laguna Beach vacation home.

Dallas real estate developer Bill Hutchinson, who starred in the Lifetime unscripted series "Marrying Millions," was sentenced to 90 days of home confinement in Texas.

The 65-year-old Texas resident pleaded guilty to a count of misdemeanor sexual battery and was put on three years of formal probation an ordered to register as a sex offender for 10 years.

If he clears two years of formal probation, it will be changed to informal status for the third year.
Hutchinson was charged in July 2021 with a felony count of rape of an unconscious person and five misdemeanor counts of touching an intimate part of another person. In the original complaint he was accused of sex assaults on two 16-year-old girls.

Prosecutors negotiated a plea deal with the one victim because there wasn't enough evidence to prove the case with the other accuser, prosecutors said.

One of the accusers said, "Bill Hutchinson has always treated me with kindness," according to her attorney, Brian Gurwitz.

"He never once acted inappropriately toward me," she added. "I never should have been part of this case."

Two teenagers went on vacation with the defendant at his Laguna Beach residence in April, according to prosecutors, who alleged he raped one of them while she was asleep. When asked to return with him in May, the accuser declined, and he took the other girl, at which point he molested her, prosecutors alleged.

City News Service contributed to this report.