Ex-doctor from Geneva accused of rape goes on trial

ST. CHARLES TOWNSHIP – The trial of a former Geneva doctor accused of aggravated criminal sexual assault and criminal sexual assault began Sept. 23 with prosecutors and defense attorneys squaring off in opening statements.

Kane County Assistant State’s Attorney Greg Sams said former Geneva doctor Mark G. Lewis, 59, drugged the drink of a 26-year-old woman who was a party guest at his house, then had sex with her while she was unable to give consent.

Defense attorney Cecily Carlin said the sex was consensual – and the only thing that Lewis will admit to doing wrong in the overnight hours of Nov. 16 to Nov. 17, 2012, was cheat on his girlfriend by having sex with another woman.

“It is a simple story,” Sams said. “The defendant, Mark Lewis, committed the crimes of aggravated criminal sexual assault and criminal sexual assault when he anally and sexually assaulted a young 26-year-old woman who had been a party guest at his house.”

Sams said the woman passed out due to a combination of prescription drugs and alcohol.

The alleged assault occurred at his former residence in the 0-99 block of Squire Lane, St. Charles where he lived with his girlfriend, his girlfriend’s daughter and his own daughters by a prior marriage, Sams said.

Testimony from the victim, Lewis’s former girlfriend, doctors who gathered evidence from the woman’s body and a forensic match of Lewis’s DNA found in her body will prove their case, Sams said.

By midnight, the other party guests had left, leaving Lewis, his girlfriend and the victim as the only ones left in the house. The victim, who had drunk two or three glasses of wine, accepted a Maker's Mark whisky drink from Lewis that immediately began to affect her, Sams said.

“All of a sudden, there was a drastic change. She is going to tell you she almost immediately blacked out,” Sams said. “(Lewis’s girlfriend) will tell you she went from sober to extremely intoxicated like that,” and snapped his fingers for emphasis.

Lewis’s girlfriend put the woman to bed in her daughter’s room. Then about 4:30 that morning, the victim woke up on the floor without her pants or underpants on, Sams said.

Lewis was there, too, without his shirt on, and told her she had urinated in her pants and they had to be washed. He gave her his girlfriend’s jeans to wear – as well as an anti-anxiety drug, Xanax, which she accepted and went back to sleep.

Later the next day, the woman began experiencing anal pain and bleeding, so she went to the hospital in McHenry where she lived, Sams said.

It was then that a rape kit was done, collecting evidence, including urine tests which showed she had clonazepam in her system – another anti-anxiety medication, as well as Xanax and Demerol, a narcotic pain-killer, Sams said.

When those drugs are mixed with alcohol, the effect is that the woman would not be able “to give consent to that man to anally rape her,” Sams said.

“This defendant knew that she was incapable of giving knowing consent,” Sams said.

Carlin countered that, “This is not a clear-cut case. This is a ‘he said, she said’ case. He will tell you a story and she will tell you not much because she doesn't remember very much."

Before charges were brought against Lewis, the woman sued Lewis civilly, Carlin said.

Lewis settled the case and paid her $50,000 and gave her a 1959 Pontiac Bonneville to protect his reputation, his medical practice and his employees, Carlin said.

The drugs the woman had in her system have the effect of causing amnesia, Carlin said.

"And what she does remember has changed quite a bit," Carlin said.

The trial will continue Sept. 24.