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AMERICAN FORK — A judge issued a warrant Tuesday for a 75-year-old former youth symphony leader accused of sexual abuse of a teenager years ago, ruling that the man has been exaggerating his medical symptoms to avoid trial for his felony charges.
Fourth District Judge Roger Griffin said Brent E. Taylor was "willfully failing to appear" in court and was "malingering and exaggerating (medical) symptoms to evade trial."
Taylor is charged with forcible sodomy, a first-degree felony. He also faces other criminal charges in Utah's 3rd District Court: two counts of sodomy on a child, a first-degree felony, and two counts of aggravated sex abuse of a child, a second-degree felony.
Charges in the two cases were filed against Taylor following a Deseret News investigation reporting that three former employees of a youth symphony orchestra in Utah County accused Taylor of either sexually abusing them or inappropriately touching them years apart when they were teenagers.
A fourth man also recalled alleged sexual interactions with Taylor as a young teen and said the man provided him with alcohol and marijuana. Another accuser filed a police report in 2011 alleging that his brother-in-law had been abused by Taylor as a youth. A sixth man, also a former orchestra employee, described lewd activities at Taylor's home when he spoke to police in 2011.
Taylor attended Tuesday's hearing virtually from a recliner in his home in Federal Heights, Colorado, as he has attended most hearings during the last few years since he has been on pretrial release.
The judge revoked the pretrial release on Tuesday and encouraged Taylor to find a ride from Colorado to Utah County and turn himself in, saying he may be more comfortable doing that than being picked up by police officers.
Tuesday's hearing was the first hearing after a medical evaluation ordered by Griffin was completed. Four trial dates have been set in the case, three of which were canceled due to Taylor's health, and the fourth for other reasons.
Taylor is a former director of the Utah Valley Youth Symphony, and in this case is accused of sexual misconduct with a teenage musician. He was a resident of Provo when he was first charged in 2018 and had recently retired after four decades with the symphony.
He is accused of engaging in sexual behavior with the teenage musician between 2002 and 2006 in Utah County, and abuse of a former employee and another boy in Sandy in the mid-1980s, beginning when the boys were 12 and 13 years old.
A motion before Tuesday's hearing filed by prosecutors explained that the court declined to take Taylor into custody when he was charged, and instead set specific release conditions. He was required to post a sign on his doors saying no one under 18 was allowed inside, have random home visits by investigators, be accompanied by an adult if he left his home, and his religious leader was to be informed of the charges.
The motion also said Taylor has not continued filing proof of weekly monitoring visits since early 2021.
Defense attorney Cara Tangaro said she plans to appeal the warrant. She claimed there were issues with the medical evaluation the judge relied upon. She said the doctor took 90 minutes for the evaluation when he previously said it would take half a day and determined Taylor was ambulatory despite him staying on a gurney the entire evaluation.
"I am concerned by that evaluation by that doctor," she said.
Tangaro also said she plans to ask for an evidentiary hearing so that doctor and Taylor's other doctors can testify.
In a legal filing, she said the medical evaluation does not represent a change of circumstances, but just an opinion. She explained Taylor is taking high doses of prescribed opioids, has diabetes, cognitive issues, respiratory issues and other issues that sometimes make it hard for him to live independently. Tangaro said her client is sometimes in too much pain to attend doctor appointments.
"It has always been (my) position based on observation of Mr. Taylor that he was incapable of assisting in his own trial and that it would be dangerous to his health to attempt to do so," she said.
The judge noted that the doctor was recommended by Tangaro and paid by both parties to obtain an unbiased medical evaluation.
The doctor determined that "a jail or prison would and should be able to accommodate any health needs that Mr. Taylor has."
Deputy Utah County attorney Julia Thomas expressed concern that an evidentiary hearing and appeal are other delay tactics, and asked that the case not be stayed during an appeal.
In the motion, Thomas said Taylor "has inflated his medical condition over the past four and a half years to avoid trial for sexually abusing three boys, who have a right to a speedy trial equal to the defendant's."
A status hearing is scheduled for Taylor on June 20, and Griffin said Taylor is expected to appear in the American Fork courthouse for that hearing and be in custody.
Taylor is scheduled for a jury trial in his 3rd District Court case beginning in January 2024.
