Illinois cop accused of sexually abusing strippers

BELGIUM, Ill. -- On the western edge of town sits a ranch-style building that might be called nondescript if it weren't for the top-to-bottom aqua paint job and the little sign mounted just above the front door.

"The Play Pen Gentlemen's Club," it reads in playful, multicolored letters.

A few blocks away, on the opposite end of this tiny town near the Indiana border, is the white cinderblock headquarters of the Belgium Police Department, whose officers make frequent "walk throughs" at the Play Pen.

But prosecutors claim former part-time police Lt. David Lewis wasn't just looking for troublemakers when he made several stops a night at the strip club.

They accuse Lewis of forcing himself on seven women who danced at the bar between September 2004 and February 2007, allegedly having sex with some of them while he was on duty and armed.

Lewis, 45, was arrested in April on charges that included criminal sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual assault, criminal sexual abuse, obstructing justice and armed violence. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Earlier this month, a Vermilion County jury found him guilty of sexual abuse and official misconduct in the first case to go to trial. He is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 19.

As both sides prepare for as many as six more trials, they provide starkly different portraits of Lewis and his alleged victims.

Prosecution witnesses from the first trial painted Lewis Ã¢â‚¬â€ť known to dancers at the Play Pen as "Gunner" Ã¢â‚¬â€ť as an aggressive womanizer who used his position to coerce strippers into kissing or having sex with him.

But Lewis' attorney, Mark Christoff of nearby Danville, said Lewis' character should be weighed against that of his accusers.

"Nobody wants to seem to back up and look at why it's ... strippers that all work together making these allegations," Christoff said in a recent interview. "Dave Lewis has never had a problem in his life up until these allegations all start coming out."

Lewis lived almost his entire his life in the Belgium area, according to court records, moving to Indiana with his wife and 1-year-old child in March.

Belgium is a town of mobile homes and simple frame houses. A handful of businesses include a couple of bars, two or three restaurants, a CB radio shop and little else.

Lewis took an $11-an-hour job with the Belgium Police Department Ã¢â‚¬â€ť one of the few municipal agencies in the town of about 500 Ã¢â‚¬â€ť in March 2004, according to the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board. Every member of the seven-officer force is part-time.

He also worked as part-time cop in Westville, which borders Belgium on the south, and at a local manufacturer until late 2006, then for the Coca Cola Company, according to court records.

The 25-year-old woman he was convicted of abusing said she began working at the Play Pen in 2005 because a friend, "said that it paid really good money and I was looking for money to pay for school."

The woman testified that, sometime after 3 a.m. on March 17, 2006, Lewis pulled over her Ford Expedition as she left work. As Lewis stood outside the open driver's side window, she said, she asked him what she'd done wrong.

"Nothing," she said he told her, before reaching through the window, putting one hand behind her neck and the other between her legs and forcing her to kiss him.

"I couldn't get away from him," according to her tearful testimony. "I kept saying, 'I have to go.'"

The woman said she stomped on the accelerator, speeding away with Lewis still reaching into the SUV.

A short time later, she said, Lewis tried to call her three times on her cell phone, adding that he apparently had her number from an earlier police report he'd taken at the Play Pen. Phone records produced in court indicated someone called the woman at 3:23 a.m. from a Belgium police number. Lewis was the only officer on duty. She said that was the last call, received as she sat in her driveway in Homer, 18 miles west of the Play Pen.

Christoff told jurors that records showed the woman made three other calls between 3:07 a.m. and the call from the police department, leaving little or no time for the traffic stop. He said the woman couldn't have gotten home by 3:23 if she left work after 3 a.m.

"I don't believe there was ever a traffic stop," Christoff said in the interview. "It couldn't have happened."

Even so, it took an eight-woman, four-man jury took about two hours to convict Lewis, who has been held in isolation at the Vermilion County Jail since turning himself in in April.

Prosecutor Michael Vujovich said the woman's job did not make her a liar. He told jurors during opening statements that Lewis' accuser danced naked for a living, which he later said allowed them to consider her testimony more than her profession.

"I wanted to make sure with the jury, they weren't going to hold it against her," Vujovich said outside court. "Obviously the upshot of the whole case is she's been vindicated."

Belgium Police Chief Dale Ghibaudy testified during the trial that he'd known Lewis for 25 years, though it was unclear from his testimony whether they were friends. Ghibaudy didn't return repeated calls from The Associated Press, and a weekday visit to the department found the building closed.

Lewis' troubles don't seem to faze many residents in Belgium or Westville. Few approached recently would say much about Lewis, and those who did said they didn't know him and hadn't heard much about the case.

"I haven't really heard a whole lot buzz on this guy," said 60-year-old Bruce Cunningham of Westville, whose house is on a street that divides the two towns.

But the case didn't seem to surprise Cunningham, who, like others in town, noted that Belgium and Westville Ã¢â‚¬â€ť population 3,100 Ã¢â‚¬â€ť have more bars than most towns their size. "My dad used to tell me this was called Little Chicago down here," a haven for gangsters looking to get away from the city, Cunningham said.

But locals are sure to hear more about Lewis if the other cases go to trial. No dates have been set.

Among the other accusations were that Lewis, while armed, forced one woman to perform oral sex on him. Others accused him of forcibly kissing them and exposing himself while he was on duty.

Christoff declined to discuss what he'll tell those juries but says the charges against his client don't add up.

"There's either a tremendous lack of evidence on the part of the state, or we can prove this stuff just didn't happen," Christoff said.

Vujovich said the time discrepancies in the first trial are small and that the woman wasn't checking her watch and taking notes. But he said, "The one thing that cannot be erased was the one call that he made."