A 44-year-old Lawrence man was sentenced to just over 17 years in prison Wednesday for child abuse; aggravated indecent solicitation of a child; and violation of his probation in an earlier crime against a child. Joshua William Spence was originally charged with aggravated indecent liberties with a child but pleaded no contest in October 2025 in Douglas County District Court to child abuse by impeding the ...
Senior Assistant District Attorney Ricardo Leal is leaving the Douglas County District Attorney's Office for a state job in Topeka. Leal, who has been with the DA's Office since July of 2022, has accepted a position with the office of Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach. That job will start in February. "I’ve enjoyed serving the community and working with the members of the office, the bar, and the Court," ...
The trial for a 21-year-old man accused of rape and kidnapping was indefinitely delayed on Tuesday, and the man's bond was modified to house arrest with work release. The defendant, Tristan Aden James, is accused of raping a fellow student in November 2024 while he was a sophomore at Haskell Indian Nations University. He is alleged to have abducted the woman and raped her in his car, then to have led police on ...
Updated at 3:48 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 20 Murder charges against the two suspects in the Saturday shootings at the Jayhawk Cafe were filed Tuesday, and the defendants made their first appearance in Douglas County District Court via video from the county jail. Prosecutor Ricardo Leal asked Judge Stacey Donovan to keep the bonds of the two 18-year-olds at $1 million cash or surety, and Donovan did so. Leal cited a ...
A Douglas County judge on Friday praised a teenager's courage for recounting the nightmare she said she had endured for years at the hands of "a monster, a rapist and a pedophile." "To say those things in a room full of people" took a commendable amount of strength, Judge Stacey Donovan told the survivor, who detailed at length the abuse she suffered at the hands of Adrian Raye Wisdom, who will now spend more ...
A judge on Thursday sentenced a man to more than two years in prison following his Dec. 11 plea deal to attempted aggravated battery. Jason Lee Stark, 35, was facing three felony charges — attempted aggravated robbery, interference with law enforcement and criminal use of weapons — stemming from an April 7, 2025, incident in which he was accused of using a sawed-off shotgun to force a Lawrence man to turn ...