Father of The 5 Browns faces sex abuse charges as he and wife recover from spectacular crash

ALPINE — The father of The 5 Browns performing group is facing felony child sex abuse charges that were filed a few days before he and his wife were critically injured in a spectacular car crash Monday evening.

Keith Scott Brown, 55, was charged in 4th District Court on Feb. 10 with one count of sodomy on a child, a first degree felony, and two counts of sex abuse of a child, a second degree felony.

Police have been working on the case for several months, and the resulting charges are part of an agreement Brown was expected to plead to on Thursday, according to a source familiar with the investigation. That hearing has now been postponed as he and his wife, Lisa, remain hospitalized after being rescued from their car, which landed in Little Cottonwood Creek, hundreds of feet below the canyon highway.

The probable cause statement filed with the criminal charges includes no details about the victims. The sodomy charge stems from incidents that allegedly occurred between November 1990 and October 1992. One sexual abuse of a child charge has a date range between November 1990 and November 1992 while the other sexual abuse charge includes the time period from March 1997 to March 1998.

The Lone Peak Police Department investigated the criminal charges but did not respond to media calls Tuesday. The Utah County prosecutor who filed the charges did not return calls, either. Brown's attorney, Steve Shapiro, said he had no comment late Tuesday.

Lisa Brown, 54, and Keith Brown were both hospitalized following an extremely technical rescue in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Keith Brown was in stable condition late Tuesday and Lisa Brown was in critical but stable condition, according to a family member.

Emergency dispatchers received a call about 10:40 p.m. of a Porsche that had gone off the road near the Seven Turns area. Keith Brown told rescuers he was knocked unconscious after the crash, had just come to and he and his passenger were "in the water."

"They said they were in the water and the vehicle was filling with water," said Unified Fire Authority Battalion Chief Mike Ulibarri.

Fire crews and paramedics had difficulty initially finding the wreck. They drove up and down the canyon, searching for debris, skid marks, disturbed snowbanks or anything that indicated where a car may have gone off the road. But there were no signs.

As rescuers talked to Keith Brown to try and pinpoint his location, he went in and out of consciousness, Ulibarri said.