Jury finds former Geneva doctor guilty of sexual assault
A previous version gave an incorrect age for the victim.
A Kane County jury on Thursday found a Geneva man guilty of sexually assaulting a woman at his home in November 2012. He could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.
Mark Lewis, a medical doctor at the time, testified he had sex with the woman but it was consensual. But prosecutors argued the woman was so intoxicated by prescription drugs and alcohol that she could not legally give consent.
During Thursday's testimony - which one prosecutor likened to an article in an adult magazine - Lewis said the woman came on to him. He initially rebuffed her, he said, believing she wanted to perform a sex act in exchange for him prescribing Xanax anti-anxiety medication.
The then-26-year-old woman was a friend of the woman Lewis lived with, at a house in St. Charles.
Lewis, now 60, said he had not met the woman before. He, his girlfriend and the woman talked in the kitchen while Lewis was cleaning up after a dinner party and the woman asked for whiskey, he said. Lewis testified he retrieved a bottle off a bottom shelf in the pantry.
The woman testified Tuesday that she had two glasses of wine at his house that night.
Lewis said the woman flirted with him, kissing his cheek and whispering in his ear, when he went out to move her car off the street at the behest of his girlfriend. The girlfriend saw the behavior, and Lewis mouthed "help me" to her, he testified.
Lewis testified the woman was directed to sleep in a guest bedroom. He heard a noise in the kitchen later, went down to investigate and encountered the woman.
They went out to his six-car garage, where they smoked her cigarettes and talked about his classic cars. She laid her head on his shoulder, he said.
"We were both flirting with each other, back and forth," Lewis said, and he asked her if she wanted to have sex. When she agreed, they went back to the guest bedroom. They then went back to the garage to smoke and to talk about his motorcycles, he said.
The woman testified Wednesday that she experienced pain the day after the party, which led her to seek treatment at an emergency room, where medical personnel found Lewis' DNA.
Lewis' girlfriend testified Wednesday that the woman was so impaired she could not walk or talk.
"That testimony (from Lewis) sounded like it came straight from the pages of an adult men's magazine," First Assistant State's Attorney Greg Sams said during closing arguments.
But defense attorney Ron Dolak said the victim was confused, gave contradictory statements and lied. He questioned how much pain she was really in, given she went to two car dealerships and lunch the day after. And he noted that she had sued Lewis in 2013, receiving $50,000 and a rusted 1959 Pontiac Bonneville in a settlement.
Sams asked Lewis if, as a doctor, he was familiar with the effects of anti-anxiety drugs Xanax and Klonopin. The victim previously had been prescribed those drugs and her urine tested positive for them, as well as the narcotic painkiller Demerol, which the victim said she had never taken.
She had testified that she believed Lewis kept Demerol at his home.
A pharmacologist called by the defense testified that the Xanax and Klonopin make people drowsy and impair their ability to form memories. The three drugs' effects are amplified by alcohol, he said, and most doctors would advise a patient not to drink while taking them.