A 55-year-old man from Texas has been sentenced to over 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to harassing and stalking Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark. Michael Lewis, a resident of Denton, Texas, was arrested in January at a hotel in Indianapolis on stalking charges, after allegedly repeatedly sending threats and sexually violent messages to Clark via social media, according to court documents. Lewis’s sentence includes time served at the Marion County Adult Detention Center since his arrest. In addition, the judge ordered him to avoid any contact with Clark, stay away from Fever or Indiana Pacers games, and not use the internet during his sentence.
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department first contacted Lewis on January 8th due to messages he allegedly sent to Clark, 23, on X (formerly Twitter) from December 16th to January 2nd. According to court documents, Lewis sent messages such as: “I’ve been driving around your house 3 times a day” and “I’m buying tickets. I’ll sit behind the bench.” Other messages were of a sexually violent nature. Clark, 23, told police that he feared for his safety, even before Lewis arrived in Indianapolis, and that he had changed his appearance in public. He also stated that he never responded to any of Lewis’s messages or posts. The FBI traced the IP addresses of Lewis’s messages to a hotel in downtown Indianapolis, as well as the Indianapolis Public Library. Indianapolis police conducted a welfare check on Lewis, who told them that he had an “imaginary relationship” with Clark and that he had gone to Indianapolis on vacation. The messages to Clark continued after the initial police visit.“You can’t help yourself until you seek help,” the judge told Lewis.
Judge
