Northern California brain surgeon, nurse charged with child sex crimes

SANTA CRUZ - A brain surgeon and a nurse in Northern California have been arrested on multiple charges involving child sexual abuse.

Police said Tuesday they will release more details about the cases later this week.

Dr. James Kohut, 57, was arrested Sunday at his home in Santa Cruz in cases involving a child under the age of 10 and a child under 14, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reported (http://bit.ly/2qq9QxT). He was booked into the Santa Cruz County Jail and is being held without bail.

Nurse Rashel Brandon, 42, was arrested last week and charged with 11 felonies involving child sexual abuse as well as multiple charges related to the production of child pornography, Watsonville police Capt. Jorge Zamora said. She also remains jailed.

It was not known Tuesday if the two have attorneys.

Both Kohut and Brandon worked at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz.

Zamora said a third, unidentified suspect is in custody outside of California.

"I can confirm we have three people in custody, and that this is a very serious sexual abuse case," Zamora told the newspaper. "I can also confirm the case crosses state lines." Police declined to elaborate.

The FBI is assisting with the investigation, but a spokeswoman did not provide further information about the cases and referred question to Watsonville police.

Kohut, who received his license to practice medicine in California in 1998, had recently joined Sparks Clinic Neurology Center in Fort Smith, Arkansas, according to the Sparks Health System website.

He was disciplined for attempting to remove a temporal aneurysm from the right side of a 36-year-old patient's head in 2002, when X-rays clearly showed the aneurysm was located on the left side, according to medical board records. He was also disciplined for viewing pornography on University Medical Center computers while working at the institution as a neurosurgeon between 2002 and 2003, according to medical board records.