photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Reston Phillips holds hands with a young woman behind him during closing arguments in his rape trial on Thursday, May 15, 2025.

A Topeka man who was convicted of rape in May after unsuccessfully arguing that he was asleep during the act and hence not responsible will now be sentenced in mid-September.

Reston Phillips, whom a jury found guilty of raping a sleeping woman in Lawrence eight years ago, was scheduled to be sentenced on July 31, but he was granted a six-week continuance after his trial attorney, Joe Huerter, withdrew from the case about two weeks after the verdict, and a new attorney for Phillips, Cooper Overstreet, came on board.

Overstreet requested, and was granted, a continuance in order to secure a transcript of the jury trial. In a motion, Overstreet indicated that the transcript was necessary for him “to adequately and completely prepare” for the sentencing hearing and the appeals process.

After his conviction on May 15, Phillips was allowed, over the state’s objection, to live in Topeka with GPS monitoring.

After the rape on May 14, 2017, he spent many years in Europe and was eventually apprehended in Mexico in 2023, when he met his family there for a vacation. After his conviction, he was ordered to surrender his passport as a condition of remaining out of jail until his sentencing.

His sentencing hearing is now scheduled to take place on Sept. 12.

At his trial, Phillips’ attorney put on a “sexsomnia” defense, suggesting — unsuccessfully — to a jury that Phillips was asleep as he made sexual contact with the victim and hence had not “knowingly” raped her.