photo by: Douglas County Sheriff's Office

Nicholas J. Lewis

On the day he was scheduled to stand trial for rape, a former University of Kansas student accepted a plea deal on a lesser charge.

Nicholas J. Lewis, 26, of Lawrence, was convicted after pleading no contest to one count of “sexually motivated” aggravated battery, a level-five felony, a court assistant told the Journal-World on Monday.

The conviction of a level-five felony comes with a minimum sentence of 31 months, or about 2.5 years, in prison, according to the Kansas sentencing guidelines. However, a judge may also choose to suspend that sentence and instead order 36 months of probation, the guidelines show.

Lewis is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 13.

Lewis was originally charged with rape, a level-one felony, for allegedly having sexual intercourse with a 19-year-old who was unable to consent because of either mental deficiency or the effect of alcohol or drugs. A level-one felony conviction comes with a minimum sentence of a little more than 12 years in prison.

A jury trial in the rape case was scheduled to begin on Monday, but the court canceled the trial Monday morning after Lewis entered the plea deal, the court assistant said.

As the Journal-World previously reported, the charges stemmed from a May 2018 incident after the woman drank heavily in celebration of her birthday and then went to a friend’s home at the end of the night, with Lewis joining them. During a preliminary hearing in August 2019, the woman testified that she woke up in a bed at the apartment to find a man on top of her.

Although she said she did not remember most of the night, the woman 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. The 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 Lewis had raped the woman, they said in court.

The woman’s friend and the friend’s former boyfriend both testified that they helped the woman get ready for bed and put her to sleep — alone — in the empty bedroom with the lights off and the door shut. 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 into 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.

A mother of one of the men who lived in the apartment found the woman’s underwear the next morning. The former boyfriend and other friends then confronted Lewis in a group text message about what had happened, which was entered as evidence during the hearing. 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.

Lewis was arrested on the charges in March 2019, and was later released from custody after posting a $15,000 bond. He remains out on bond prior to sentencing.