photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Calistus Ezenwa exits the courtroom on Jan. 24, 2025, in Douglas County District Court. On Friday, Aug. 8, 2025, a jury found him not guilty of rape and aggravated criminal sodomy.

After a day and a half of deliberations, a jury found a KU student not guilty of rape and aggravated criminal sodomy on Friday in Douglas County District Court.

The trial for Calistus Chukwuma Ezenwa began on Monday, and included testimony from the woman who accused Ezenwa of assaulting her on Nov. 21, 2024. During closing arguments on Thursday, the attorneys didn’t dispute that something happened that night between Ezenwa and the woman — rather, they disagreed on whether what happened was consensual.

Ezenwa’s defense attorney, Gary West, argued that what happened in November 2024 was consensual sex that the woman eventually regretted. He asserted that details of the woman’s retellings of the incident weren’t always consistent.

Deputy District Attorney David Greenwald, however, argued that if no crime had occurred and the woman merely regretted what had happened with Ezenwa, it would have been easy for her to just cut ties with him, since they met on a dating app and did not share a social circle. Greenwald asked the jury why the woman would go through the legal process, including getting a sexual assault exam at the hospital, and why she would tell her mother and brother about the details of that night if she had not been a victim of a crime.

The jury began its deliberations around 10 a.m. Thursday and did not return its not guilty verdict until around 1:30 p.m. Friday. At one point, the jury asked to be read part of the woman’s testimony, when Greenwald asked her to describe the encounter with Ezenwa. In this testimony, the woman described Ezenwa penetrating her and said she was “experiencing a lot of pain.” She responded “no” to multiple questions from Greenwald on whether she had given consent. West objected to allowing that part of the transcript to be read back without providing more context.

The jurors also wanted clarification on whether Ezenwa’s first language was English. Ezenwa had previously said that he was from Nigeria and was studying at KU on a student visa.

Ultimately, the jurors decided that the prosecution had not met its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. They acquitted Ezenwa of both of the felony counts he was charged with. After the verdict was read, a couple of members of the jury were noticeably emotional.

Friday’s acquittal was the third for the DA’s office in the past four weeks. On July 10, a jury found that the state had not proved its case against a convicted drug dealer who was accused in a Lawrence teen’s fentanyl death, and on July 31, a jury acquitted a man who was accused of an aggravated assault with an ax near a homeless camp on the Kansas River levee trail.