Man convicted of sexual assault

CHARLESTON, W.VA. -- A Kanawha County jury has decided a Charleston man is guilty of sexual assault of a former girlfriend, but stopped short of finding him guilty of kidnapping in the incident last March.

Jurors heard from the victim, who told how Robert Lee Lewis, 40, came to her home despite a domestic protective order she had filed against him.

The woman was physically ill on the stand, prompting Judge Jennifer Bailey to call a recess and defense attorney John Sullivan to ask for a mistrial. The judge denied that request.

The jury, instructed not to let the victim's illness on the stand sway their opinion, deliberated the case over two days and returned their verdict just before 3 p.m. Thursday.

Lewis was convicted of abduction with intent to defile - a lesser charge than kidnapping - one count of burglary and one count of sexual assault. The jury found him not guilty of kidnapping and not guilty of a second count of sexual assault.

Bailey is scheduled to sentence Lewis Jan. 6.

Assistant prosecutors Ben Freeman and Erica Lord tried the case against Lewis for the state.

The victim testified that she had known Lewis about six months and had let him move into her Russell Street apartment. When their relationship went bad, she said, she asked him to leave and filed the protective order against him.

On March 26, he knocked at her door, saying he was someone else, she said.

"When I saw it was Mr. Lewis I shut it, but he slammed right through the door," the woman testified.

Right after the incident, the victim told police Lewis took her from her apartment to a vacant house on Grant Street, fought with her and raped her.

She said she escaped, ran back to her home and called police. She said she refused to have a rape examination at the hospital because she had been there for hours, was exhausted and just wanted to go home.