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.

Updated at 4:38 p.m. Thursday, May 15

A Douglas County jury on Thursday found a man guilty of raping a woman eight years ago when the two were guests at a Lawrence home during KU’s graduation weekend.

The woman testified that Reston Phillips, then 22, raped her on May 14, 2017, as she slept on a couch in the home’s living room in the 1200 block of Louisiana Street.

Phillips, however, claimed that whatever occurred that night — he did not contest a DNA analysis that found he matched seminal fluid found in the woman — happened while he was asleep and that he was therefore not legally responsible. An expert witness for the defense told jurors that the incident was “likely” a result of “sexsomnia,” or sexual activity that occurs during sleep without the person’s knowledge.

Per the court’s instructions, the jury could find Phillips guilty of rape only if he had “knowingly” engaged in sexual intercourse with the woman. After about five hours of deliberation, jurors found that he had done so, rejecting his sexsomnia defense.

Phillips told the jury that the woman consented to be cuddled, or spooned, on the couch and that he fell asleep with his arm wrapped around her chest, as the Journal-World reported. The woman said that no such thing happened, that she had zero interest in Phillips, whom she had just met, was happily engaged to another man and was by herself on the couch when she fell asleep.

The woman said that she woke to Phillips raping her from behind and that when he immediately sensed she was awake he paused the assault — indicating that he had not actually been asleep, as Deputy District Attorney David Greenwald would argue — only to resume “thrusting” before she quickly pushed him off and ran from the room. She said that afterward he tried to explain by telling her, “I thought we were friends.”

During closing arguments Thursday, Phillips firmly nodded when his attorney, Joe Huerter, asserted to the jury that no crime, “no wrong,” had occurred that night, and silently shook his head “no” when Greenwald forcefully insisted: “He raped her.”

Greenwald, citing testimony from Phillips’ former high school buddies, who were at the house the night of the incident and who ceased speaking to him, said that Phillips was trying desperately to “hook up” that weekend and had zeroed in on the woman as a desired partner.

At several points during closing arguments Phillips, in view of the jury, tightly gripped the hand of his fiancée sitting behind him in the courtroom with his family.

After the verdict was read, he hugged and kissed his fiancée, who was audibly sobbing. The woman, according to Huerter, lives in Germany, where Phillips has also been living, apparently for years, and where he intended to return to a career as a freelance audio engineer before he was found guilty of rape.

Greenwald asked Judge Amy Hanley to immediately remand Phillips into custody, citing the severity of the crime and calling him an “inherent flight risk.” Huerter told the court that Phillips was not a flight risk, noting that he had appeared at all of his court dates and had followed court orders. He also indicated that Phillips had no criminal history.

Hanley asked where Phillips’ passport was and was told it was at his mother’s house in Topeka, where he has been staying. She ordered that Phillips be held in custody until his passport could be retrieved from Topeka and surrendered to the court.

“You’re not going anywhere until we receive that passport,” she said.

She further ordered that he be fitted with a GPS monitor until his sentencing on July 31.

Huerter disclosed Thursday that Phillips, who had an arrest warrant dating from 2018, was apprehended in 2023 in Mexico, not in Texas, as had been previously reported. He said Phillips was going to meet his family at a Mexican resort for a vacation and to introduce them to his fiancée, but he was “grabbed at the airport in Mexico,” then taken to the United States.

Outside of the courtroom Thursday afternoon, supporters of the woman, several of whom had testified for the state, hugged and expressed relief that the eight-year ordeal had come to a close. In his closing argument, Huerter suggested that the friend group had had eight years to come up with a story to damage Phillips, but Greenwald told the jury that perhaps it was Phillips, with his sexsomnia defense, who had used the time to come up with a story.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Reston Phillips is pictured at his rape trial Thursday, May 15, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.