Jury trial rescheduled for second of two men accused of violent Lawrence robbery

The jury trial for the second of two men accused of a violent, armed robbery in June 2015 was pushed back more than three months.

Alex Caprice Sanders, 19, faces felony charges of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary and criminal possession of a firearm by a felon.

Early in the morning of June 30, police responded to an apartment in the 2400 block of Alabama Street for a robbery report, according to arrest affidavits filed in Douglas County District Court.

At the apartment Sanders and another man, Deshane Keonte Rayton, 21, entered at gunpoint, and Rayton hit a woman living there in the head with the weapon, according to the woman’s testimony during a January preliminary hearing. The men allegedly stole marijuana, liquid phencyclidine, or PCP, drug paraphernalia, around $1,700 worth of electronics and a black duffel bag worth about $20.

The woman’s children — one 7 months old, the other 3 years old — were both asleep in the apartment during the incident, she said. Neither child was injured.

The woman said Sanders and Rayton shut her in her bathroom and left through her back door. Sanders was arrested in Topeka on Dec. 3 while Rayton had already been in the Douglas County Jail for the past five months, related to a failure to comply with court orders.

Rayton pleaded no contest to a single felony count of aggravated burglary on April 6. Robbery, kidnapping and firearm charges were all dropped as a part of his plea agreement.

Rayton was sentenced on April 29 to serve a total of 114 months in prison and to pay $2,115.92 in restitution.

Sanders’ jury trial is now scheduled to begin Aug. 24 at 9 a.m. He is currently being held in the Douglas County Jail in lieu of $200,000 bond.