Sexual Assault Conviction Earns Life Sentence For Gwinnett Man

LAWRENCEVILLE, GA — A Gwinnett County man has been sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting a woman at gunpoint after months of aggressively pursuing her.

Gary Lewis Keys, 51, was convicted Friday in Gwinnett County Superior Court on two counts of aggravated sodomy. According to evidence, Keys and his victim had been friends since meeting in 2012.

But prosecutors say that, at some point, he began to fixate on her, despite her repeated efforts to rebuff his advances. Evidence in the case included hundreds of "outrageously graphic" text messages sent by Keys to his victim over the course of several months, the Gwinnett County District Attorney's office said.

On May 5, 2015, Keys showed up at the victim's home with a handgun and assaulted her.

The victim told a friend, who encouraged her to contact police. When questioned about the charges, Keys claimed to have been somewhere else at the time of the attack, but police investigation revealed that he was lying.

His DNA also was located at the scene of the crime.

At trial, prosecutors say the victim became visibly upset at the sight of Keys, whom she had not seen since the assault. However, she testified during the trial and, after the verdict, released a written statement through prosecutors.

"I didn’t just do this for me," the woman said in the statement. "I did this for my mother who was a rape victim, and for all of the women out there who didn’t or couldn’t tell."

Superior Court Judge George F. Hutchinson III handed down the life sentence.

"You had concluded that you were somehow entitled to take something that would not be given willingly," Hutchinson said to Keys. "And you did so at the end of a gun."

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