A 55-year-old man from Texas was arrested on suspicion of felony stalking after he allegedly repeatedly sent threatening and sexually violent messages to Fever star Caitlin Clark on social media, court documents show. .
Michael Lewis was charged with a Level 5 felony after being arrested Sunday at an Indianapolis hotel, police records show.
He is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday morning and could face up to six years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Part of his message to Clark reads below.
“Drive around your house three times a day,” Lewis texted Clark, according to court documents. “But don’t enact the law just yet, the public can drive by Gainbridge…aka Kettering Arena.”
Another message read: “I’m buying tickets. I’m sitting behind the bench.
Another said, “They said I was sending threatening texts…but the only thing I thought was…CAITLIIIIIIIIIINNNNN.”
Other messages sent involved sexual violence, court documents said.
Clark told police she feared for her safety even before Lewis arrived in Indianapolis.
She changed her appearance in public and told police she had never participated in any of Lewis’ messages or posts.
Prosecutors wrote that the posts “actually caused Caitlin Clark to feel scared, frightened, intimidated or threatened” and also made implicit or explicit threats “with the intent of placing Caitlin Clark in reasonable fear of sexual assault.” ”.
Indianapolis police conducted a welfare check on Lewis before his arrest, and Lewis told police he was in an “imaginary relationship” with Clark and that he was in Indianapolis for vacation.
Court documents say police told him “not to post the content he had been posting… because his posts could be viewed as threatening.”
Lewis told them, “This was an imaginary, fantasy type thing, a joke and had nothing to do with a threat.”
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