NEW CASTLE, Del.- A Delaware Superior Court jury has found Clay Conaway guilty of third-degree unlawful sexual contact but not guilty of strangulation after an eight-day trial in Wilmington.
Conaway, 23, was facing charges of strangulation, of which the jury found him not guilty, and attempted second-degree rape, of which jury did not convict him but did opt to convict him on the lesser-included charge of unlawful sexual contact, a misdemeanor offense offered to them to consider by Superior Court Judge Richard Stokes.
Conaway, a former University of Delaware baseball player and a Sussex Central High School graduate, was accused of assaulting and strangling a 20-year-old coed in 2017.
Conaway had faced a mandatory 10 years up to life in prison if convicted of attempted second-degree rape; he could have faced up to 8 years if convicted of strangulation.
This is the second of six trials Conaway faces on various sexual assault charges, stemming from incidents that took place between 2013 and 2018. The trial is taking place in Delaware Superior Court in Wilmington because the crime is alleged to have taken place in New Castle County.
The prosecution originally sought to try all six cases together, but Stokes, who also presided at the first trial, sided with the defense and called for six separate trials.
Conaway was indicted Aug. 20, 2018, by a grand jury on first-degree rape for an incident at his Georgetown home.
Conaway was sentenced in November 2019 to five years of prison, and he has since been incarcerated at Sussex Correctional Institution. Conaway still faces four more trials on second-degree rape charges.
