photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Miquel Brown, left, is pictured following his sentencing hearing for rape on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026.

A Douglas County judge on Wednesday sentenced a Lawrence man to more than 12 years in prison for rape and aggravated criminal sodomy.

The sentence comes after a jury in November convicted Miquel Brown, 33, of the two sex crimes and after his attorneys failed on Wednesday morning to win a new trial for him or a departure from the Kansas Sentencing Guidelines.

The October 2024 incident involved a then 18-year-old woman who said Brown assaulted her on his living room couch, where she was spending the night after an evening out with the man and his girlfriend.

Judge Sally Pokorny, presiding over a packed courtroom, sentenced Brown to 147 months for rape and 147 months for aggravated criminal sodomy and ran the terms concurrently. The state had sought 155 months for each count, and the defense had asked — unsuccessfully — for any sentence to be suspended to probation, saying that the facts of the case were “atypical.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.