Jury to decide fate of Santa Rosa doctor in teen sexting case

The lawyer for a Santa Rosa doctor on trial for allegedly sending lewd text messages to a 13-year-old girl and trying to meet her for sex argued Tuesday his client believed all along that the girl was really an adult who was “playing a game” that she was younger.

Raymond Severt, 54, a well-known orthopedic surgeon, met the girl in February 2013 on an adults-only chat line, where her profile listed her as being 19 or 24, attorney Stephen Turer said in closing arguments.

As the two communicated by text message over two days, the girl changed her age to 17 and then 15, but Severt believed it was all an act, Turer said.

In fact, the girl, who testified at the weeklong trial, admitted trying to “prank” an adult into thinking she was a woman. It worked, Turer said, in part because of her adult-like responses to his sexually explicit messages.

“She didn’t sound like a 13-year-old,” Turer told jurors. “She said a lot of things you wouldn’t expect a 13-year-old to say.”

But prosecutors argued the evidence showed otherwise. They read jurors pages of cellphone records in which the girl seemed to not understand sex acts Severt described or anatomical references.

Severt commented repeatedly that he liked younger girls and at one point asked the girl what grade she was in.

In one message, after the girl lied she was 15, Severt told her to erase their conversation from her phone so her mother wouldn’t see it.

“Why would you care about that if you’re talking to an adult?” prosecutor Nicole Pantaleo said. “Because he’s been told she wasn’t an adult.”

In fact, the girl’s mother did see the messages after she became suspicious and confiscated her daughter’s phone. She testified that she was shocked by Severt’s texts and turned the phone over to police. Before she did that, the mother continued to text-message Severt, pretending to be her daughter and telling him among other things that the girl was really 13.

Severt responded by asking about her other teenage friends and urging her to meet him. One of his last messages says, “It will be fun to kiss you and touch you and have you touch me,” Pantaleo said.

He was arrested Feb. 11, 2013, at a Novato 7-Eleven, after being lured from Santa Rosa by undercover police.

“It’s pretty compelling evidence,” the prosecutor said, pointing to a stack of more than 100 text messages Severt sent. “It’s in black and white. This is English. Not some foreign language that we can’t understand. This is plain English.”

Jurors received the case late Tuesday and are scheduled to begin deliberations Thursday. They heard testimony from the girl’s mother but not Severt, who did not take the stand.

He watched the proceedings from the defense table, staring straight ahead, as his wife sat behind him in the gallery. His medical license has been suspended pending the outcome of the case and his former Santa Rosa practice has cut ties with him.

Severt is charged with five felonies, alleging he attempted to commit a lewd or lascivious act on a child under 14, sent disturbing or harmful material to a minor, contacted a minor under 14 to commit a lewd act, went to meet with a minor for a lewd purpose and annoyed or molested a child by displaying abnormal sexual interest.

He faces a maximum of about 6½ years in prison if convicted.

All of the charges require prosecutors to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Severt knew the person he was text-messaging and planning to meet with was a minor, Judge Kelly Simmons instructed jurors.

His lawyer argued they haven’t done that. Turer said Severt was led from the beginning to believe the girl was an adult. She checked a user agreement on the Live Link website that she was 18 or older and created a dating profile that said she was an adult, he said.

Turer asked jurors to consider the context of their meeting before judging Severt on the content of the messages. He said there are many websites catering to adults who want to meet other adults for sex or to indulge fantasies, which could include pretending to be younger than they are.

That’s what Severt thought the girl was doing, Turer said.

“He thinks it’s part of a game,” Turer said. “It’s reasonable to believe it’s part of a game.”

You can reach Staff Writer Paul Payne at 568-5312 or paul.payne@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ppayne.