photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Reston K. Phillips appears Monday, May 12, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

A 30-year-old woman has been waiting eight years to tell a jury what happened to her on KU graduation weekend in 2017.

On Monday that long-awaited opportunity arrived as she faced Reston K.Phillips in Douglas County District Court and told jurors that he sexually violated her as she slept after a night of celebrating.

The woman, a one-time KU student who flew back to Kansas that weekend to see her friend walk down the Hill, said that she was staying at the home of her friend’s boyfriend in the 1200 block of Louisiana Street, where Phillips, a 22-year-old Topeka man she had never met, was also a guest.

She testified that after an evening of partying, which she said involved marijuana and alcohol consumption, she went to sleep on the living room couch and woke up to Phillips raping her.

The woman said that he paused when he saw that she had awakened, but then briefly continued the assault until she quickly pushed him off of her. She said he immediately said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She then ran to a bathroom, where she said he waited outside. When she emerged from the bathroom, he again apologized, she said.

“For [expletive] raping me?” she said.

Phillips said, “I thought we were friends,” she testified.

The woman told the jury that she at no time consented to sex with Phillips and that she was at that time engaged “and happy in a relationship.”

The woman said she went into another room of the house to lie down — the room where her friend and the friend’s boyfriend were sleeping — then eventually got up and left the house. As she did so, she said, Phillips followed her until she warned him that she would call the police if he didn’t leave her alone.

The woman then walked to the friend’s apartment a block or so away from the house and called the friend near dawn, telling her to meet her right away. The friend, apprised of what had occurred, took the woman to the hospital, where a rape kit was performed and the incident was reported to police.

The woman’s friend and one of the police officers who took a statement at the hospital also testified on Monday, relating substantially similar narratives, though some details about the bars and restaurants the friend group visited that night varied.

At one point, the woman said, “I apologize; It’s a little fuzzy after eight years,” seemingly referring to defense questions about things like how many buttons her shorts had.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Reston K. Phillips, left, appears with his attorney, Joe Huerter, Monday, May 12, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

When asked by defense attorney Joe Huerter if she remembered how much she had to drink that night, she replied, “I don’t, sir.”

While readily acknowledging that she was intoxicated, as were other members of the group — “I don’t think there was a sober one amongst us,” she had told Deputy District Attorney David Greenwald — she was not so impaired as to not remember events of significance.

“Of the details that matter, I know those clear as day,” she told Huerter.

Ahead of the woman’s testimony, Greenwald gave a short opening statement, describing the graduation weekend eight years ago as one of celebration, but also of “loneliness and desire.”

He painted Phillips as a young man who had just been broken up with and who was desperate for female attention. Greenwald said that the male roommates where the incident occurred would testify later in the trial that Phillips was eager — to an “annoying” degree — to meet girls and “kept coming back to [the alleged victim] over and over again.”

Huerter reserved his right to delay his opening statement until later in the trial, so the defense’s theory of the case was not apparent, though, during jury selection earlier Monday, Huerter and Greenwald asked potential jurors numerous questions about sleepwalking and things that might occur during sleepwalking.

Phillips’ day in court for the 2017 incident has been a long time coming. A warrant for his arrest was issued in March 2018. It’s not clear where he was in the many years after the incident, but his social media accounts indicated that he had spent considerable time in Germany and the Netherlands. He was finally arrested in September 2023 in Harris County, Texas. He has been free on a $30,000 bond since shortly after his arrest.

He was days away from trial last May but has been granted a series of continuances over a witness issue. Huerter claimed that while preparing for trial he had become aware of the need for “certain expert testimony.” When pressed by Judge Amy Hanley, Huerter indicated that the expert he sought was a medical doctor, but he said he could not say more without disclosing his defense strategy. At a status conference ahead of this week’s trial, Huerter indicated that he had an expert from Stanford University lined up.

The jury — 11 women and four men (three alternates are included) will reconvene at 9 a.m. Tuesday to hear a second day of testimony in a trial that’s expected to last all week.