photo by: Douglas County Sheriff's Office

Nicholas J. Lewis

After a night of excessive drinking and her friends helping to get her to sleep at a Lawrence apartment in May 2018, a University of Kansas student woke up to find a man on top of her, she testified in Douglas County District Court on Thursday.

Although she said she did not remember most of the night, she said she remembered getting up and going to another room of the apartment to find her best friend, which is when she realized her underwear was missing. Her friend said the woman came into the room “whimpering, shaking and was inconsolable.”

“She said she doesn’t want to be touched,” the friend testified.

The next morning, the two women pieced together that Nicholas J. Lewis, of Lawrence, had raped the woman, they said in court.

After hearing the testimony of the woman and three others during a preliminary hearing, Judge Sally Pokorny bound Lewis, 23, over for trial on a felony charge of rape. The three-day trial is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Dec. 2.

Charges allege that Lewis raped a 19-year-old who was unable to consent because of either mental deficiency or the effect of alcohol or drugs. The complaint includes two alternative charges, also felonies: aggravated sexual battery of a person who is unconscious or physically powerless; or aggravated sexual battery of a person who is unable to consent because of mental deficiency or the effect of alcohol or drugs.

The charges stem from an incident in which the woman drank heavily in celebration of her birthday, while her best friend and the friend’s boyfriend at the time did not drink. The friend and her former boyfriend both testified that the woman became extremely drunk at Jayhawk Cafe at 1340 Ohio St., known as the Hawk, and needed help walking up the stairs to go back to the former boyfriend’s apartment.

They returned to the apartment with Lewis joining them, they said. The former boyfriend said Lewis was friends with him and the other two men who lived in the apartment.

While the woman said she did not remember most of the night, both the friend and her former boyfriend testified that they needed to help the woman get into the apartment because of her intoxication. They said they also assisted her in the apartment by making her food and helping her get dressed for bed.

The friend said she changed the woman into an oversized white T-shirt and new underwear, while the former boyfriend made her food. After they were done, they helped the woman get to sleep — alone — in the empty bedroom, turning off the lights and shutting the door.

However, another man who lived at the apartment testified that later in the night he woke up and found the door to the bedroom where the woman was sleeping open and the room’s lights on. He said Lewis was on the bed looking at his phone, which he found unusual because Lewis had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room.

After moving to the bedroom with her friend, the woman said she also went to the bathroom and experienced discomfort. She said she put on shorts without her underwear and went back to sleep on the couch.

The next morning, after the two women left the apartment, a mother of one of the men who lived there found the woman’s underwear. After speaking with the woman’s friend and learning what they suspected, the former boyfriend and other friends confronted Lewis in a group text message, which was entered as evidence during the hearing. The former boyfriend said Lewis initially apologized for making a mess in the bedroom, but the former boyfriend then asked about the underwear. He testified that Lewis said he had sex with the woman.

The former boyfriend then asked via text if Lewis knew the woman was “unconscious,” which Lewis responded to by saying, “I was tanked too.” The former boyfriend told Lewis that being drunk was not a good enough excuse. Lewis then responded by saying he knew he had made a mistake and he had decided to stop drinking alcohol for a while, according to the testimony.

Along with the woman and her friend, the former boyfriend went to the police to report the incident, sharing the text message conversation with authorities. The report was made to Lawrence police four days after the alleged incident, according to the department’s activity logs.

Police arrested Lewis for the charges in March. Court and jail records indicate that Lewis was released on $15,000 bond.