{"id":30301,"date":"2025-07-28T21:34:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T21:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/30301\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T21:34:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T21:34:09","slug":"man-pleads-guilty-to-stalking-and-harassing-wnba-star-caitlin-clark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/30301\/","title":{"rendered":"Man pleads guilty to stalking and harassing WNBA star Caitlin Clark"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Texas man was sentenced to more than two years in prison Monday after he pleaded guilty to stalking and harassing WNBA star Caitlin Clark<\/a>, officials said.<\/p>\n

Michael Lewis, 55, was sentenced to 2.5 years for the stalking charge and was given a 180-day suspended sentence for harassment, a spokesman for Indiana’s Marion County Prosecutor\u2019s Office said.<\/p>\n

Lewis, who has been incarcerated at an Indianapolis jail since his arrest in January, will have a time-served credit of 197 days applied toward his prison term, court records show.<\/p>\n

Lewis was accused of sending a series of vulgar, sexually graphic messages to Clark on X, the social media platform, between December and January, prosecutors have said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis resolution ensures that the defendant is held accountable for his threatening actions, the fear he instilled, and the disruption he caused,\u201d Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears said in a statement Monday. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe will now spend the next two and a half years in the Department of Corrections, and the victim will be able to have peace of mind while focusing on what matters to her,\u201d Mears said.<\/p>\n

A stay-away order was also issued for Indiana Fever events and Hinkle Fieldhouse, where Clark\u2019s boyfriend, an assistant basketball coach for Butler University, works, the records show.<\/p>\n

In a presentencing statement Monday, Lewis denied threatening Clark and said he had been trying to highlight security concerns for Clark, NBC affiliate WTHR <\/a>reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want her to be safe,\u201d he said, according to WTHR.<\/p>\n

At one point, the judge presiding over the case interrupted Lewis\u2019 statement and warned he was \u201cgoing to talk himself out of a plea,\u201d the station reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to understand that as part of a plea deal, you are admitting responsibility,\u201d the judge said, according to the station.<\/p>\n

Clark, who was selected first overall by the Indiana Fever in last year\u2019s WNBA draft, is college basketball\u2019s all-time leading scorer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Texas man was sentenced to more than two years in prison Monday after he pleaded guilty to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-30301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}