Authorities in Indianapolis have charged a 55-year-old Texas man with felony stalking of Indiana Fever star and WNBA rookie of the 12 months Caitlin Clark.
Michael Thomas Lewis is accused of repeated and continued harassment of the 22-year-old Clark starting on Dec. 16, the Marion County prosecutor’s workplace wrote in a Saturday courtroom submitting. Jail data present Lewis is due in courtroom on Tuesday.
Lewis posted quite a few messages on Clark’s X account, in accordance with an affidavit from a Marion County sheriff’s lieutenant.
In a single, he stated he had been driving by the Gainbridge Fieldhouse — one of many arenas the place the Fever performs residence video games — 3 times day, and in one other he stated he had “one foot on a banana peel and the opposite on a stalking cost.” Different messages directed at Clark had been sexually express.
The posts “truly precipitated Caitlin Clark to really feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, or threatened” and an implicit or express risk additionally was made “with the intent to put Caitlin Clark in cheap worry of sexual battery,” prosecutors wrote within the Marion County Superior Court docket submitting.
The FBI realized that the X account belonged to Lewis and that the messages had been despatched from IP addresses at an Indianapolis lodge and downtown public library.
Indianapolis police spoke with Lewis on Jan. 8 at his lodge room. He advised officers he was in Indianapolis on trip. When requested why he was making so many posts about Clark, Lewis replied: “Simply the identical cause all people makes posts,” in accordance with courtroom paperwork.
He advised police that he didn’t imply any hurt and advised them he fantasized about being in a relationship with Clark.
“It’s an creativeness, fantasy kind factor and it’s a joke, and it’s nothing to do with threatening,” he advised police, in accordance with the courtroom paperwork.
In asking the courtroom for a better than normal bond, the prosecutor’s workplace included that Lewis traveled from his residence in Texas to Indianapolis “with the intent to be in shut proximity to the sufferer.”
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The prosecutor’s workplace additionally sought a stay-away order as a selected situation if Lewis is launched from jail forward of trial. Prosecutors requested that Lewis be ordered to avoid the Gainbridge and Hinkle fieldhouses the place the Fever play residence video games.
The Related Press was unable to find out Monday if he has a lawyer who can touch upon his behalf.
The Related Press named Clark the Female Athlete of the Year for 2024. After main Iowa to final 12 months’s national championship game, she was the highest decide within the WNBA draft and went on to win rookie of the year honors within the league.
