Dr. William Lewek given max sentence for burying body

Author Hannah Arendt famously coined the phrase "the banality of evil" to explain the actions of Nazis in her 1963 classic, Eichmann in Jerusalem.

And Monroe County Court Judge Christopher S. Ciaccio cited Arendt on Friday as he sentenced a Rochester psychiatrist to up to four years in prison for burying a body in a Park Avenue neighborhood backyard.

While William Lewek has numerous substance abuse and physical and mental health issues, Ciaccio said, none of those are adequate explanation for why he kept Matthew Straton's body hidden for nearly three months, even as police and increasingly frantic family and friends looked for him.

Instead, Lewek "simply put his needs and fears above others'," Ciaccio said as he gave Lewek the maximum sentence on the felony charge of tampering with physical evidence.

That physical evidence was the body of 32-year-old Straton, who died in October 2013 at Lewek's Rowley Street house and who Lewek then dragged outside and buried. The county Medical Examiner's Office was never able to ascertain what killed Straton, though during sentencing Friday there were numerous references to it very likely being of a drug overdose.

"Matt had been thrown out like a bag of garbage," Straton's mother, Kym, told the court prior to sentencing, as she described the family's frantic efforts to try to find him for more than two months. "I have nightmares of what Matt looked like when he finally was discovered."

Lewek, 63, apologized to Straton's family and struggled to explain why he remained silent about the corpse in his backyard, even as a flier with Matthew Straton's face happened to go up on a pole just across the street from his home.

Lewek and his attorney, Matthew Parinello, tried to paint a picture before the court of a remorseful Lewek struggling with chemical dependence issues stemming from years of chronic pain.

"I live every day with regret why I didn't think," Lewek told the court.

After sentencing, outside the courtroom, a longtime patient of Lewek's — Dorinda Outram of Rochester — tried to differentiate between the man and his actions. "I can't excuse them," she said, before adding, "My experience with him was extraordinary."

Along with the prison time, Ciaccio also sentenced Lewek to three years of probation for an Irondequoit driving while ability impaired charge, that time to be served after his release from prison.

While Lewek was taken away in handcuffs inside the courtroom, numerous family members and friends of Matthew Straton hugged outside.

"I've always hated the word 'closure,' " Kym Straton said. "But I can breathe. I can breathe."

MDANEMAN@DemocratandChronicle.com

Twitter.com/mdaneman