FARMINGTON — A former gymnastics coach charged with sexually abusing two juvenile female students has filed a petition against Davis County alleging constitutional violations including false arrest, illegal detention and failure to receive a speedy trial.

Kelly Christian Brown filed for a writ of habeas corpus in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City on Sept. 9, naming Davis County Sheriff Kelly Sparks as respondent. The petition asks the court to review Brown’s detention status, with Brown noting he has been a pretrial detainee for 20 months, has no criminal record and has been a model prisoner.

According to charging documents, Brown, 33, of North Ogden, is accused of sexually touching a student at a Layton gym and exchanging nude photos with her. The girl came forward in 2021, saying the alleged conduct had occurred over several years.

After the charges were filed, another girl who was taught by Brown at a Bountiful gym saw news coverage of the Layton case and approached police with a report of similar conduct occurring in 2012.

Brown is accused of first-degree felony object rape; forcible sexual abuse and two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, all second-degree felonies; three third-degree felony counts of dealing in materials harmful to a minor; and class A misdemeanor sexual abuse of a minor.

Last November, Judge David J. Williams tossed out a Layton police detective’s interrogation of Brown, saying the defendant’s rights were violated because the detective was deceptive.

But Brown this summer fired his attorney, Tara Isaacson, saying in his detention petition that she kept trying to get him to agree to a plea bargain in the cases. Last week, Williams assigned a public defender to take over Brown’s cases.

In his federal court petition, Brown mentioned the illegal interrogation ruling as evidence of investigator and prosecutor malfeasance and misconduct. He alleged the charges are “solely dependent on hearsay” and he attacked his accusers’ credibility. He criticized the Davis County Attorney’s Office’s unsuccessful effort to again combine the cases “with a new catchword ‘grooming’ to incite a jury against me.”

Brown charged that the Layton Police Department’s allegedly unconstitutional interrogation has led him to be held without bail since his arrest. In the county jail, Brown said he has “repaired a black mold infested bathroom,” “found a dead body in full rigor mortis” and has been harassed by jail staff.

Asked about the petition on Monday, Davis County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Stephanie Dinsmore said the agency had not seen the document yet and had little comment. However, told about the mold and dead body allegations, she said they were not valid.

“All of our units are inspected every week by our maintenance teams for lighting, mechanical things and other items, and one of them is mold,” she said. “We have not had any instances of mold.”

She added: “There’s no rigor mortis” of deaths in the jail where Brown may have been present, such as inmates who have died of suicide alone in their locked cells, or a public incident on a jail tier that corrections deputies responded to immediately.

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