photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

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

Updated at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 28

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 came 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 favorable departure from the Kansas Sentencing Guidelines.

The Oct. 27, 2024, incident involved a then 18-year-old woman who said Brown, whom she looked up to as an “older brother” figure, assaulted her on his living room couch, where she was spending the night after an evening out with Brown and his girlfriend.

Brown told police that the activity, which began with his massaging the woman’s lower legs, was consensual. The woman said that it was against her will, though she acknowledged at trial that she did not say no and wasn’t threatened or forced; rather, she said she had felt overcome by fear due in part to Brown’s relative size: 360 pounds to her 123.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Attorney Jessica Glendening addresses Judge Sally Pokorny Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Douglas County District Court. Her client, Miquel Brown is at center, and co-counsel Gary West is at right.

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” in that “nonconsent was never voiced.”

“One would be hard-pressed to find a rape case more atypical than this one,” defense attorney Gary West said.

West and defense attorney Jessica Glendening had hoped to win a new trial by arguing that the statutes Brown was convicted under were unconstitutionally vague by failing to define the phrase “did not consent” and by creating a strict liability offense wherein Brown could not defend himself by asserting he was mistaken about the woman’s consent.

Pokorny declined to find the state laws unconstitutional and emphasized the fact that 12 people unanimously found Brown guilty based on what they heard and saw at trial.

“In any sex offense case, it is almost always” one person’s word against another’s, and “the jury has a very difficult role in making a decision concerning credibility,” Pokorny said.

She noted that the jurors told her after the November trial that they were focused on credibility. They had watched the victim testify, and during their deliberations had rewatched the video of Brown telling police that he understood the sex acts to be consensual. When jurors returned to the courtroom over three hours later, their guilty verdicts revealed whom they found credible.

“Consent” has a common meaning, Pokorny told the courtroom Wednesday, and its meaning is a “factual issue” — that is, an issue for the jury — “not a legal issue.”

In arguing for a sentencing departure to probation, defense attorneys called psychologist Seth Wescott to the stand. Wescott did a psychosexual evaluation of Brown in December and testified that Brown would be amenable to treatment in the community rather than in prison, which doesn’t offer treatment by licensed mental health professionals. He said Brown would be very unlikely to reoffend.

West also welcomed five people — out of more than a dozen supporters in the courtroom — to speak on Brown’s behalf. All five, including his mother, spoke of Brown as a generous, trustworthy, hard-working man. The mother told Pokorny her son was “a very good person” who is “worthy of your mercy.”

Brown’s former foster mother and the mother of one of his children painted a different picture, however, saying that Brown, despite his supporters’ remarks, had never taken responsibility for his actions and took advantage of someone he should have protected.

The victim herself did not speak, but a statement by her was read to the court by Senior Assistant District Attorney Ricardo Leal. The woman, now nearly 20, wrote that the ordeal — involving “someone I never expected would hurt me in this way” — continues to affect her life every day in the form of traumatic memory, fear and confusion.

But “I refuse to disappear,” she said. “What happened to me matters.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Senior Assistant DA Ricardo Leal reads a victim impact statement at the rape sentencing for Miquel Brown on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026.

Leal told Pokorny that Brown remained “a danger” to the community and disputed the notion that the case was atypical.

“This isn’t an extraordinary case,” he said, and Brown is “not an extraordinary person.”

Brown himself briefly addressed the court, telling the victim that he was “deeply sorry for my actions, how they’ve hurt you,” and that he took full responsibility and wanted to learn from the experience and “move forward.”

Before handing down her sentence, Pokorny said that she had not found substantial and compelling reasons to depart from the state sentencing guidelines.

“I do not believe Mr. Brown is a bad person,” she said, “but Mr. Brown did a bad thing.”

She also observed that rape victims are put “in a box” by society, which demands from them that they fight back and “scream bloody murder” to show they did not consent but which also tells them to not fight back for their own safety.

She also indicated — in light of the defense’s discussion about absence of restraint — that the size difference between Brown and his victim (“a 300-plus man lying on a 125-pound young woman”) was in and of itself a form of restraint.

In addition to the 147-month concurrent terms, Brown will also have to register as a sex offender for life and will be subject to lifetime supervision when he gets out of prison.

“Mr. Brown’s life has been destroyed,” she said, adding: “There is no good outcome for anyone in this case.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Miquel Brown is escorted out of the courtroom after being sentenced for rape on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026.