By Guy Leonard, County Times
HOLLYWOOD, Md. (June 12, 2008)—Alan K. Kohut, the man who faced an attempted first-degree murder charge for severely beating a man at the A&E Motel in Lexington Park last year reached a plea agreement with prosecutors to first-degree assault, avoiding the possibility of facing a longer prison term if convicted of the greater crime.
Kohut, 28, of Ridge has yet to be sentenced since his plea agreement last week. The incident occurred last November in room 107 of the motel on Great Mills Road when Kohut, charging documents against him stated, began striking and kicking Thomas Alvin Campbell when the victim refused to give Kohut money.
When police arrived on the scene to deal with the disturbance, Kohut began throwing objects in the room out at police in an attempt to keep them from getting inside, charging documents state.
The disturbance was so great that it drew a crowd of onlookers, police said at the time of the incident.
That night Kohut told police he had beaten Campbell because of some kind of an alleged unrelated sexual assault, charging documents state, and that he had killed or was trying to kill the victim.
Kohut said he “danced on his [the victim’s] face” and told investigators he “[hoped] he dies,” charging documents stated.
Investigators said Campbell denied making any kind of sexual advances towards Kohut; detectives said they believed Kohut’s original motivation for the assault was money and that the claims of some kind of sexual assault were not credible.
Deputies at the stated that the attack was a brutal assault and that the evidence of the incident was all they needed to charge Kohut with attempted murder; motives were not necessarily important to the case.
The damage done to Campbell was severe, according to police reports; the injuries included temporal skull fracture and massive tissue injury.
Kohut faces up to 25 years in prison for the first degree assault charge.