‘Caroline stood strong.’ Sexually assaulted as teen, she faced down attacker in court
Editor’s note: The Charlotte Observer does not name victims of sexual assault but in this case, the individual, through her attorney, asked for her identity to be used.
Shortly after her 18th birthday, according to court documents, Caroline Cox was trapped in a coffee shop bathroom and sexually assaulted by her boss.
This week, the 22-year-old finally took the witness stand to share the details of the January 2016 incident with a Mecklenburg County jury.
Bringing sexual assault allegations to a courtroom full of strangers can be a wrenching experience. But Cox’s case featured even more arduous twists.
First, prosecutors dropped the criminal charges, saying that Cox waited months before going to police, offered conflicting versions of events and left the state with “no likelihood of success at trial” in convicting her alleged attacker.
Within days of that setback, Cox found two Charlotte attorneys willing to sue the man she accused of assaulting her: Lewis Jewett, the former owner of Madalyn’s Coffee and Tea in Cornelius and Huntersville. The civil trial began earlier this week.
When the defense had the chance to cross-examine Cox on the witness stand, she was questioned not by an attorney but by Jewett himself. The next day, Cox went through the ordeal again when Jewett, who represented himself during the trial, made Cox his only witness.
“That was very difficult to watch ... to see him go after her,” said one of Cox’s attorneys, Kevin Murphy of Charlotte. “When that moment came, I don’t know what was in her head, but Caroline stood strong.
“... She was emphatic that this did happen.”
The jurors agreed. Four years after the attack, they deliberated only two hours before finding that Jewett had indeed assaulted and battered Cox and held her against her will — just as she had said.
The jurors ordered Jewett to pay Cox $322,275 for personal injury and $450,000 in punitive damages, the latter requiring “clear and convincing evidence.”
Jewett, who has closed his business and moved out of state, did not respond to multiple Observer phone calls seeking comment.
According to Murphy, Jewett argued in court that the sexual encounter with his teenage employee never occurred. While Jewett was heard on tape apologizing repeatedly to Cox, he told the jury that he was referring to flirting and inappropriate texts he had sent, not to an assault.
Murphy said Cox’s quest has never been about the money. Rather, he said, she wanted the chance to be heard and seen — in and outside the courtroom.
“She didn’t want this all to be about Lewis Charles Jewett. She’s been through a lot. She’s overcome all of it. We think that this says a lot about perseverance, and she wants people to know her name.”
‘Over, done with, gone’
Cox’s life, much like her court case, has not been easy, her attorney says.
According to Murphy, she was living on her own at 15 and supporting herself with a series of restaurant jobs. In January 2015, when she was 17, she went to work for Jewett, first as a part-time barista, then as a general manager at what was then Madalyn’s new downtown Cornelius location.
The promotion came with a perk — an upstairs apartment above the shop where Cox could stay for cheap.
Except, according to her civil complaint, Jewett’s behavior toward her had begun to change. He began hugging her a bit too long, venting about his lack of a sex life in his marriage, and he told Cox she should stop wearing a bra.
Soon, Cox says in her lawsuit, Jewett began pressuring her for a nude photograph. On a Friday in January 2016, he told Cox in a text — which was presented to the jury during the trial — where she could find some missing coffee beans.
“Now I gave you something do I get something in return. I would love to have a pic that will keep u on my mind all weekend,” he wrote.
“Sorry!” Cox replied.
A week later, according to court documents, Jewett called the teen in on her day off to meet him at the coffee shop shortly before closing time. Once she arrived, her boss again complained about the state of his marriage and told Cox that he “lives by” her.
When she tried to leave, according to the lawsuit, Jewett insisted that she see a remodeled bathroom first. When she followed him there, Jewett closed the door behind her, grabbing her wrists and pushing her up against a wall. Cox says he fondled her and forced her to engage in oral sex despite her repeated cries of “no.”
She stayed out of work for two weeks before agreeing to see him. She recorded their next conversation, which was played to the jury. During it, he pressures her not to tell anyone and asks her to delete text messages he’d sent.
He also said he was ready to move on.
“First and foremost is the situation last week,” Jewett said, according to the transcript. “I’m terribly sorry. That was awful. I feel like crap. I feel like s--- from beginning to the end of that.
“But over, done with, gone. You know, it’s just you move past that. I’m — luckily, I’m really good at just moving forward with situations, and I’m good there.”
‘She was believed’
Cox filed criminal charges nine months later, after a counselor she was seeing told her that if she did not come forward, someone else might be harmed, Murphy said.
Thus to Cox, the district attorney’s decision in July 2017 to drop the case — which cited “the delay in filing and the lack of effective corroborative evidence” — felt like a personal rebuke, Murphy said.
Yet, Cox persisted.
Within a week of the prosecutors’ dismissal, she had hired Murphy and his law partner Sean Herrmann to take over her case. They filed suit against Jewett last year.
During jury selection for the trial, Murphy said he got an inkling that Cox at last had found a receptive audience.
“You could see how #MeToo had changed attitudes. The jurors were very understanding that just in case you don’t report something immediately doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” Murphy said.
Still, the courtroom confrontation with Jewett loomed. Murphy said the prospect almost had his client bailing on her own case.
“She knew that this was a moment she and I had talked about a lot. Knowing that if she wanted to do this it was going to be him,” Murphy said. “She didn’t crumble.”
Murphy acknowledged that the award is “a big number,” but that “no one is under any delusion that this guy is worth that much. She knows she’s never going to get that.”
“But it was a wonderful sight when the verdict came in,” Murphy said “... For the jury to say, ‘We do believe you, and we want to punish this man.’”
This story was originally published February 22, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
