photo by: Lawrence Police Department

John Lotz

There is apparently no question that he was a Lawrence teacher in his mid-30s and she was a sophomore in high school when they began having a sexual relationship a quarter of a century ago.

The question – the legal one, at least – will be whether the relationship occurred in the first part of the girl’s sophomore year, when she was 15, or in the second part, when she was 16, which is the legal age of consent in Kansas.

The answer to that question will make a “huge” difference, as defense attorney Angela Keck put it, to her client: 62-year-old John Matthew Lotz, who is charged with one count of aggravated indecent liberties with a child.

The student, who is now a 41-year-old woman, said she lived in Lawrence in the year 2000 and attended a private school, not Lawrence High School. She said she met Lotz, a theater teacher at LHS, in an internet chatroom. Their online interactions developed into an in-person meeting during which they had intercourse in a theater classroom at LHS, she testified Wednesday at Lotz’s preliminary hearing.

She said she was definitely 15, not 16, because she lost her virginity on that occasion – an event for which she said most women remember their age. She remembered too that it was earlier in the year 2000, late spring perhaps, because she was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and she specifically remembered telling Lotz that she was only 15.

She also hadn’t gotten her driver’s license yet, which she would do later on the morning of her 16th birthday. All of this happened before then, she was certain.

The woman said that the relationship was “consensual” in that Lotz did not use force or fear to get her to agree. She willingly walked – because she couldn’t yet drive – to the parking lot of an elementary school near her home, where Lotz picked her up in what she thinks was a dark-colored Cadillac. He then drove her to LHS, entered the school, which wasn’t in session, chained a door behind them – “so no one would come in,” she said – and proceeded to have sex with her on a mattress on the floor.

After that, they had sex nearly a dozen times, the woman testified, in various locations: in the car, a church parking lot, outside at a park, in hotels. She did not remember exact dates, but she was sure these encounters had taken place before her 16th birthday. Some also took place after that, she said, but Lotz moved out of Lawrence in September 2001 and the encounters then ceased.

The woman said she had been a willing participant as a teen, but as she matured into an adult she felt differently about the encounters, apparently believing them to have been criminal because of her age at the time and his professional position. She said she looked up Lotz on Facebook over the years.

“I was concerned that he was still teaching kids,” she testified.

She had discussed the matter with therapists, and last winter she finally decided to report the incidents to Lawrence police.

Lawrence police then went to Terre Haute, Indiana, where Lotz lived and worked as an assistant director of business engagement at the Indiana State University Career Center.

Officer Molly May testified that Lotz was interviewed twice in Indiana and once in Lawrence.

During the first interview, she said, Lotz admitted remembering the girl and described her as a smart, funny sophomore. He said they had met online and that she was interested in literature, which meshed with his interest in theater.

After that interview, May said, Lotz asked to discuss the matter with his wife and family, then sat for another interview the next day. May said he was very concerned about his “reputation” while talking to them and did not initially admit to “what we were asking.”

During the second interview he was asked if the relationship with the girl did become sexual in nature.

Reading from her report, she quoted Lotz as responding: “If it did, I would hope not. I don’t think so … It’s possible, but I would hope I’d have better judgment than that.”

For the third interview, Lotz drove himself to Lawrence, parked in a parking lot, then Ubered to the police station. May explained that he had done this so that his daughter could come retrieve his car in the event that he was arrested and jailed.

During this last interview, May said, Lotz admitted that he did have sex with the girl, including in the school drama room and at several other places.

May said Lotz asked questions about the age of consent in Kansas. Was it 18? No, it’s 16, they told him.

Eventually he said that he wasn’t sure if she had been 15 or 16 but that the sex had occurred later in her sophomore year.

May said that Lotz’s Miranda rights had been read to him in May in Indiana but not in June in Lawrence.

Lotz’s defense attorney, Angela Keck, attempted to discredit the woman’s account of having been 15 at the time by casting doubt on her memory of details from 26 years ago. Keck said the woman had told May that she was 16 when the sex occurred, but the woman denied having said that, and May, listening to a recording of the conversation, said it wasn’t clear from the recording what the woman had actually said. The recording was not played aloud in court, and May said there were other reasons why police believed she had been 15.

The woman herself, while admitting that in general she might have a bad memory, said, “I know what I know.”

Keck also seemed to criticize police for not trying to obtain records of the chatroom conversations from 26 years ago. May said that in her experience that sort of data from that long ago simply did not exist.

The woman had also testified that during the incident in the LHS drama room a FedEx or UPS driver had attempted to make a delivery but could not get in because of the chain Lotz had put on the doors. Keck suggested that the police should have checked with those businesses to see if any such delivery had been made 26 years ago.

At the end of Wednesday’s hearing, Deputy District Attorney David Melton said that the criminal complaint against Lotz would be amended to allege the time of the relationship from April 6, 2000, to April 5, 2001 “to conform to evidence.”

Keck asked Judge Stacey Donovan for additional time to prepare the argument she intended to make to the court regarding why Lotz should not be ordered to stand trial on the charge. Specifically, Keck said she wanted time to put her thoughts together on the critically important time elements in the case.

Donovan granted the parties an extension until an Oct. 30 hearing. If, in viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the state, Donovan then finds probable cause to believe Lotz committed a crime, she will order him to stand trial.

Lotz is currently in custody in the Douglas County Jail on a bond of $100,000.