Clark informed police she feared for her security and had altered her look in public after receiving the messages on X.
Police within the US state of Indianapolis have charged a person from Texas with a felony for stalking Girls’s NBA famous person Caitlin Clark.
Michael Thomas Lewis is accused of repeated and continued harassment of the 22-year-old Clark starting on December 16, the Marion County prosecutor’s workplace wrote in a court docket submitting on Saturday. Jail information present Lewis is due in court docket 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 mentioned he had been driving by the Gainbridge Fieldhouse – one of many arenas the place the Fever play residence video games – 3 times a day, and in one other, he mentioned he had “one foot on a banana peel and the opposite on a stalking cost”. Different messages directed at Clark have been sexually specific.
The posts “truly prompted Caitlin Clark to really feel terrorised, frightened, intimidated, or threatened” and an implicit or specific menace additionally was made “with the intent to put Caitlin Clark in affordable worry of sexual battery,” prosecutors wrote within the Marion County Superior Courtroom submitting.
Lewis might resist six years in jail and a $10,000 advantageous if convicted.
The FBI realized that the X account belonged to Lewis and that the messages have been despatched from IP addresses related to an Indianapolis resort and a downtown public library.
Indianapolis police spoke with Lewis on January 8 at his resort room. He informed officers he was in Indianapolis on trip. When requested why he was making so many posts about Clark, Lewis replied: “Simply the identical motive all people makes posts,” in accordance with court docket paperwork.
He informed police that he didn’t imply any hurt and that he fantasised about being in a relationship with Clark.
“It’s an creativeness, fantasy sort factor and it’s a joke, and it’s nothing to do with threatening,” he informed police, in accordance with the court docket paperwork.
In asking the court docket for a better than normal bond, the prosecutor’s workplace mentioned Lewis travelled from his residence in Texas to Indianapolis “with the intent to be in shut proximity to the sufferer”.
The prosecutor’s workplace additionally sought a stay-away order as a particular situation if Lewis is launched from jail earlier than trial. Prosecutors requested that Lewis be ordered to avoid the Gainbridge and Hinkle fieldhouses the place the Fever play residence video games.
Responding to the threats, Clark informed police she feared for her security and had altered her look in public.
“It takes a variety of braveness for girls to come back ahead in these circumstances, which is why many don’t,” Marion County prosecutor Ryan Mears mentioned, in accordance with The Indianapolis Star.
“In doing so, the sufferer is setting an instance for all girls who should stay and work in Indy with out the specter of sexual violence.”
Clark, 22, was the primary general choose within the 2024 WNBA Draft after a celebrated profession at Iowa. She earned All-Star and All-WNBA honours and was named the WNBA Rookie of the Yr within the 2024 season.