photo by: Dylan Lysen/Lawrence Journal-World

Trey L. Gibson, 20, listens to a prosecutor speak during a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021.

Speaking through tears, a 15-year-old girl recounted in Douglas County District Court on Wednesday how a 19-year-old Lawrence man allegedly raped her in his vehicle.

The teen said Trey L. Gibson, now 20, initially reached out to her through social media in January, when she was 14, to meet up to smoke marijuana. But when they met at Lyons Park in North Lawrence, he allegedly demanded she get in his car, showing her what she believed to be a shotgun.

Gibson then drove her to the parking garage next to the Lawrence Public Library and sexually assaulted her, she testified.

“He said ‘Don’t yell, there’s no one around us,'” the teen said as she described the assault while crying. “I kept asking him why. ‘Why’ is all I knew what to say at the time.”

Months later, the teen and Gibson’s ex-girlfriend — Olivia Scott, who was dating him at the time of the alleged incident — would later confront Gibson at a North Lawrence bar about the encounter. The teen recorded the bar confrontation on her phone. In a video shown in court, Gibson appeared to acknowledge a sexual encounter had occurred with the underage girl.

Gibson faces at least three felony charges for the incident and the aftermath. After hearing evidence during a preliminary hearing, Judge Stacey Donovan on Wednesday bound him over for trial on one count of rape and one count of aggravated criminal sodomy, which are both level-one felonies; and one count of aggravated indecent liberties with a child between the ages of 14 and 16, a level-four felony.

Both the rape and aggravated criminal sodomy charges come with a minimum sentence of slightly more than 12 years in prison, according to the Kansas sentencing guidelines.

The count of rape also includes the alternative charge of aggravated indecent liberties with a child, a level-three felony; and the the count of aggravated criminal sodomy includes the alternative charge of a lower level of criminal sodomy.

As the Journal-World previously reported, Gibson was originally charged with two counts of indecent liberties with a child and one count of aggravated criminal sodomy. But prosecutors filed an amended complaint last week that included the more serious criminal charge of rape.

Additionally, on Wednesday, Senior Assistant District Attorney Nicholas Vrana asked to add an additional charge of kidnapping. However, Donovan chose to hold off on binding Gibson over on that charge after his attorney, Cooper Overstreet, said he was unprepared to argue against it on short notice.

Gibson is scheduled to be arraigned on the amended charges on Dec. 7. A trial date has not yet been set.

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During her testimony, the teen said she met Gibson at a park when she was 13 and he began to message her through Instagram, a social media app.

Sometime in January, they agreed to meet up to smoke at the park. But the teen said when they met at the park, he lifted what she believed to be a shotgun from the backseat of his car and told her to get in. After she was in the car, he drove her to the parking garage. She said he threatened her, telling her he knew where she lived.

Once at the parking garage, Gibson allegedly forced her to commit sexual acts on him, then forced her into the backseat, where he raped her, she said.

She said she kept asking Gibson why he was assaulting her and she tried to stop him by trying to move his arms, but he only shushed her. She said she also tried to get out of the vehicle because she was forced up against the vehicle’s door, but it was locked.

After the alleged assault, the teen said Gibson “acted like nothing happened” and dropped her off back in North Lawrence down the street from the park.

photo by: Dylan Lysen/Lawrence Journal-World

Trey L. Gibson, left, speaks to his attorney, Cooper Overstreet, during a preliminary hearing in Douglas County District Court on Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021. Gibson was accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in January 2021.

Later, Gibson reached out to the teen, seemingly to apologize. According to Instagram messages shown in court, he asked if there was anything he could do to make things right.

“If there is some way that I can repay you without ruining my life, I would like to,” Gibson said in the message.

The teen then asked for him to send her $150. Screenshots of another social media app, Venmo, showed Gibson sending her the number with “apology” listed as the subject of the transaction.

Meanwhile, Scott had come across the messages he had sent to the teen on Instagram, which she said “implied” he had sex with the teen. She said she saw the messages while going through Gibson’s phone, which made her realize that he had cheated on her.

The next day, Scott reached out to the teen through social media to talk to her about the incident, telling her she was not trying to cause any issues with the teen, but to learn the truth about Gibson cheating on her. The teen told Scott that she needed to leave Gibson and called him “a raper” and said that he was “scary,” Scott said in court. Scott then called the teen to speak over the phone, and the teen broke into tears, she said.

Later, after ending her relationship with Gibson, Scott said he came to her apartment to try to get something back from her that he had previously gifted to her. During that meeting, she said, Gibson admitted he had cheated on her by having sex with the teen.

About 20 minutes after that meeting, the teen told Scott that Gibson was trying to meet her again. Scott told the teen not to go alone and went with her to the bar, where they confronted him about the incident.

In a video shown in court, Scott and the teen are heard angrily confronting Gibson about the incident. He appeared to acknowledge he had sex with the teen, which the teen could be heard saying was gross and disgusting because she was underage.

However, Overstreet noted in court that neither Scott nor the teen used the word “rape” when they confronted Gibson. He also said rape was not the terminology used in a police report about the incident.

He asked the teen if she used the word “rape” when speaking to police about the assault. She said she had not because she doesn’t like using that word.

While Overstreet was questioning Scott, she said she did not know of any time when Gibson had a firearm in his vehicle, but that she was aware that he played pool and had his own pool cue that he kept in a special case. It was unclear if Overstreet was suggesting the pool cue case could have been what the teen thought was a firearm.

When asked by Overstreet why Scott did not report the incident to the police before confronting Gibson, she said she advised the teen to report it but she said she was too scared to do it. The teen also told her she wanted to tell her mother first. Eventually, the incident was reported to police by Scott’s therapist, who is a mandatory reporter, she said.

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Gibson was originally arrested on suspicion of the charges on July 13. He was later released from custody after he posted a $90,000 cash or surety bond.

When Judge James T. George set the bond, a prosecutor said the amount was appropriate because Gibson has “extensive criminal history.”

According to court documents, all of Gibson’s prior cases occurred when he was a minor. He was previously convicted of unlawful voluntary sexual relations and sexual battery in Douglas County’s juvenile court and sentenced to a year of intensive supervised probation.