SANTA CRUZ — Attorneys for James Kohut filed a motion to challenge 17 charges accusing the neurosurgeon of a conspiracy involving sex crimes against children.
Last year, Superior Court Judge John Salazar dismissed 13 charges of copulation and other sexual acts by adults with children younger than 10 after reviewing videos of minors having sex — the children of Kohut’s codefendants: Rashel Brandon and Emily Stephens, Kohut’s girlfriend. Three other charges also were dropped.
Kohut, 58, worked as a neurosurgeon with privileges at Dominican Hospital. Brandon, 44, worked as a nurse at the same facility. Stephens, 31, was living in Arizona when they were arrested in 2017. Stephens might have been pregnant with Kohut’s child and he was concerned she might tell his wife, authorities said during a hearing last year. A witness has said Kohut was trying to blackmail Stephens.
Now, the prosecution has filed another charging document claiming the charges should be upheld. In opposition, defense attorney Ed Swanson filed a motion asserting that his client should not be charged in connection with allegations of misconduct in situations when only children were having sex.
The defense is pursuing dismissals “on the grounds that those charges are not supported by probable cause and the majority of the statutes charged therein are inapplicable to the alleged conduct,” Swanson wrote in his motion filed in February.
Judge Ariadne Symons is scheduled to review the charging information — and the defense rebuttal — at a hearing 8:15 a.m. June 7.
A preliminary hearing last year held Kohut on 32 counts linked with molesting children.
The allegations
Kohut intended to blackmail Stephens by having Brandon record her having lewd acts with children at a Scotts Valley motel in 2017 shortly before the defendants were arrested in Santa Cruz, Watsonville and Tucson, Arizona, authorities have said.
Brandon’s husband, who was in the process of divorcing his wife, found what appeared to be child pornography on a camcorder and reported the suspected abuse to Watsonville police, authorities have said.
There are four alleged victims: Brandon’s son, Stephens’ son and daughter and a female victim who was 13 when she said Kohut assaulted her in 2004, according to testimony. There also are allegations that Kohut abused one of those children at Brandon’s lake house in Tuolumne County.
The defendants remain at Santa Cruz County Jail since they were arrested in 2017.
