SLEEP CREEP WALKS
Innocent of sexual assault — because he was sleepwalking!
Nick Liu, 27, stumbled into his roommate’s bedroom drunk and molested the pal’s girlfriend in 22015. But yesterday, a jury found Liu not guilty — buying his excuse that he often sleepwalks.
An unemployed Manhattan man claimed that he was just sleepwalking when he molested his roommate’s bikini-model girlfriend — and on Friday, a jury bought his bizarre story.
Nick Liu, 27, was acquitted of all charges by the panel of two men and four women after three hours of deliberations — much to the shock of those watching in the Manhattan courtroom.
“I’m very happy to have my life back,’’ a smiling Liu said after the verdict.
He had faced one count each of misdemeanor forcible touching and third-degree sex abuse.
While his accuser wept on the stand recounting the incident, Liu’s lawyer successfully argued that his client shouldn’t be held responsible for his actions — because he hadn’t truly been awake at the time.
Liu, a Georgetown University graduate, got into hot water after a night of heavy drinking on Sept. 11, 2015. Early the next morning, he wandered into roommate Shane Payne’s bedroom in the Stuy Town pad they once shared.
Payne’s horrified girlfriend awoke to find Liu kissing her neck and putting his fingers inside her, she told jurors.
She yelled, “Stop! Stop!” as she shoved him off her.
During her tearful testimony, she insisted that Liu was fully conscious when he attacked her and that he had even blurted to her, “Wait, we’re not going to do this?”
But the defendant told jurors he has suffered from sleepwalking since he was a child.
He said that he fell asleep that morning and that his next memory was of “someone jostling me quite aggressively.” He said he was distraught when he realized it was his pal’s girlfriend.
The out-of-work investment analyst said he ran back into his bedroom and began hyperventilating.
“I was breathing quite fast. I just felt horrible,” he testified.
Liu’s girlfriend of five years, Alexandra Berg, talked on the stand about his history of sleep disturbances.
She said he grabs her breasts and vagina about twice a month in his sleep.
“The first few times it happened, I didn’t know he was asleep,” she told the jury. “He woke up during it, and you could see his eyes going from unconscious to confused.”
Liu’s mom, Lisa Phillips, a kindergarten teacher, broke down in tears when Assistant District Attorney Mimi Mairs indelicately grilled her on the stand about her son sleepwalking as a child.
As the mom tried to explain her son’s behavior that night in 2015, Mairs asked, “Was there ever a time when your son was sleepwalking that he put his fingers in your vagina or your daughter’s?”
“That’s awful!” Phillips replied. “What is wrong with you?”
The jurors looked disgusted at the prosecutor’s line of questioning.
Liu’s lawyer, Dan Ollen, argued in summations that the law requires intent.
“You cannot intend to do something if you are not conscious,” Ollen said. “The defense of sleepwalking wasn’t made up out of thin air.”
But the prosecutor countered that there is no science or medical diagnosis to back up the claim. She insisted that Liu knew what he was doing and that the crime was about sexual gratification.
Liu left the courtroom accompanied by his girlfriend, parents and sister.