photo by: Mackenzie Clark

The Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center, which houses Douglas County District Court and a number of other criminal justice services at 111 E. 11th St., is pictured April 8, 2020.

A judge bound a Lawrence man over for trial in a rape case Wednesday in Douglas County District Court, following testimony from a witness and the woman he is accused of raping.

Andrew E. Ferguson, 22, was charged last December with rape of a victim who was unconscious or physically powerless. Ferguson faced an alternative charge of rape of a victim who was incapable of consenting because of the effects of drugs or alcohol. Both are severe, level-1 felonies.

At a preliminary hearing Wednesday, Senior Assistant District Attorney William Votypka also requested that the judge bind Ferguson over on one count of aggravated criminal sodomy. Judge Kay Huff agreed to do so.

Ferguson was a University of Kansas pharmacy student at the time of the alleged incident, according to court records. Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, a spokesperson for KU, said via email Wednesday that Ferguson was no longer enrolled as of October.

The victim in the case, a woman who was 20 at the time of the report, said she had been drinking with her friends and roommates at a house party they hosted on Dec. 12, 2019. She testified that she and a smaller group of friends, Ferguson included, had stayed up later than everyone else and gone upstairs to hang out in a bedroom around 4 a.m.

Another friend with them, a fellow student, testified that once they went into the room, Ferguson and the woman continued to drink vodka. He said Ferguson was flirting with the woman and touching her, even though she told him to stop multiple times and was talking about how much she loved her boyfriend, who was not present.

The friend said they all went to sleep after the sun rose, which was around 7:30 a.m. But around 9 or 9:30 a.m., he woke to find Ferguson performing oral sex on the woman, he testified. He said he then saw Ferguson get on top of the woman and pull the blanket up over them both, and it appeared that he was having sex with her.

The friend said that didn’t seem right based on the events of a few hours prior, so he got up to see what was going on. He said when he realized the woman was unconscious, he pushed Ferguson off, pulled the woman out of the bed, then kicked Ferguson out of the house.

The woman testified that her memory was fuzzy because she’d had a lot to drink, and she wasn’t sure which details she remembered from her own memory and what she’d pieced together with what her friend told her. She said she didn’t remember going to bed. However, she said she remembered waking up to Ferguson “on top of” her, and clarified that she meant he was “having sexual intercourse with” her. She said she remembered getting scared and freezing up, then passing out again. Asked if she consented to any sex acts with Ferguson, she said “absolutely not.”

The woman said she went to the hospital shortly after the incident occurred, but no evidence from a sexual assault examination was discussed during the hearing.

Ferguson’s retained defense counsel, Sarah Swain and Nicholas Hayes, did not present any evidence or make arguments at the hearing.

Ferguson’s next court date is an arraignment on Jan. 12. He has remained out of custody on $100,000 surety bond since a couple of days after his arrest on Dec. 14, 2019. The Swain Law Office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment for this article Wednesday.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office has declined multiple requests from the Journal-World for Ferguson’s booking photo, including a request sent Wednesday after Ferguson was bound over for trial.