A Camano Island man will face years in prison at a Nov. 20 sentencing hearing after jurors found him guilty last week in a rare spousal rape trial.

The jury in Island County Superior Court deliberated for more than three days before finding Adam Hinze guilty of rape in the second degree and assault in the second degree.

Hinze had been charged with rape in the first degree, but the jury found him guilty of the lesser offense. The jury also did not find that he committed the assault with sexual motivation, as the prosecutor had alleged.

Hinze will face a “determinate plus” sentence in which the judge will impose a minimum term, but he will not be released until a sentencing review board determines he is not likely to reoffend.

Hinze denied all of the accusations. He took the stand and testified in his defense.

Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks handled the case at trial. In comments after the trial, he noted that spousal rape cases are unusual, although the crime itself may not be. The Centers for Disease Control reports that 43% of rapes were committed by intimate partners, although many go unreported, uninvestigated and unprosecuted.

That was not the case in this Island County crime.

“They are often, as was the state’s theory in this case, acts of dominance and control through sexual violence,” Banks wrote. “These crimes are not primarily about seeking sexual gratification. In addition to the trauma of the violent acts, the intimate relationship between the perpetrator and victim can render the victim very disoriented and confused about what happened to them. Reliving the incident in a courtroom compounds the trauma and confusion.”

The assaults occurred on the evening of June 4, 2022. The victim got upset at him over messages he was erasing on a phone app, but she told him she didn’t want to talk about it that night. He followed her to a spare bedroom, unlocked the door and tried to get into bed with her. When she pushed him away with her feet, he grabbed her, strangled and raped her while she told him to stop, according to the prosecutor’s trial brief.

When she tried to leave the room, he threw her to the ground, straddled her and repeatedly punched her in the face. He then raped her again, the prosecutor’s trial brief states.

Hinze stopped attacking his wife after seeing blood pouring from her face, the brief posits. The woman was able to run into another bedroom, grab a gun from a nightstand and emptied it of bullets. She kept the gun pointed at her husband and she backed out of the house while calling 911, according to the trial brief.

The woman suffered a fractured eye socket from the assault.

The Department of Corrections will conduct a pre-sentence investigation since Hinze committed a sex crime. As part of the report, a corrections officer will provide a sentence recommendation.