photo by: Lawrence Police Department

John Lotz

A former Lawrence High School teacher who had a sexual relationship with a teen more than a quarter of a century ago has been ordered to stand trial for aggravated indecent liberties with a child.

Douglas County Judge Stacey Donovan determined on Friday, after hearing evidence last week, that probable cause existed to believe that John Matthew Lotz, 62, committed a crime against a 15-year-old who was a student at a private school in Lawrence.

According to testimony at the preliminary hearing, the two met in an internet chatroom, then engaged in a sexual relationship, the first encounter having occurred in the Lawrence High School theater room, where Lotz taught drama. Other encounters reportedly followed in public parks, cars, hotels and other venues, as the Journal-World reported.

Lotz’s attorney, Angela Keck, argued to Donovan on Friday that the case should be dismissed because in her view the evidence indicated that the girl, now a 41-year-old woman, had been 16 at the time, which is the age of consent in Kansas.

Donovan, though, found that in viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the state – the standard for a preliminary hearing – there was probable cause to believe that the girl was underage. The woman gave several reasons for believing she was 15 at the time, but the reason specifically noted by Donovan on Friday was that the woman had testified that she had lost her virginity with Lotz – an event for which the woman had said most women clearly remember their age. Lotz had also mentioned a date in police interviews that would have put the start of the sexual relationship before the girl’s 16th birthday, Donovan noted.

The woman said at the preliminary hearing that she had been a willing participant as a teen, but that later 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 had 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.

Officers 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, and he was arrested shortly thereafter.

Since his arrest, Lotz has been in the Douglas County Jail on a bond of $100,000. He pleaded not guilty Friday and will next appear in court on Jan. 12 for a status conference. Keck said she intended to file several “dispositive” motions on Lotz’s behalf ahead of that date.