Buchheit to receive evaluation prior to trial

A Netawaka resident charged with several sex-related crimes in­volving a child will be evaluated to see if he is fit to stand trial, it was noted in Jackson County District Court on Friday.

The motion to have Scott James Buchheit, 36, evaluated was one of a few motions granted by District Court Judge Norbert Marek during a pre-trial motion hearing for Buchheit on Friday. Buchheit’s trial has been scheduled to begin Tuesday, Feb. 16 — more than a year after his arrest on the sex-re­lated charges — and both Marek and Jackson County Attorney Shawna Miller said they wanted to see the case resolved soon.

Buchheit has been charged with two counts of aggra­vated in­decent liberties with a child, five counts of rape, two counts of ag­gravated criminal sod­omy and one count each of inde­cent solicitation of a child and theft. He currently re­mains at the Jackson County De­tention Center on $200,000 bond.

Buchheit had been arrested in Febru­ary of last year on charges that originally in­cluded six counts of aggravated criminal sodomy, six counts of rape and one count of felony theft. The sex charges in­volved alleged inci­dents between August of 2008 and Janu­ary of 2015 involving a girl who is now 17 years old and had formerly lived in the same resi­dence as Buchheit, it was reported.

An amended complaint detailing the new charges against Buchheit was filed in April by Miller during a preliminary hearing in district court, at which time Buchheit pleaded not guilty to all of the charges. It was determined that there was enough evidence to merit a trial, it was reported.

Buchheit was originally sched­uled to stand trial in October, but the trial was rescheduled after the late District Court Judge Micheal Ireland approved Buchheit’s mo­tion to dismiss his original attorney, Russell Roe of Onaga, and ap­pointed Holton attorney J. Richard Lake to replace Roe.

Other motions granted on Friday included a motion in limine (seek­ing a ruling on the admission of certain evidence in the case), a mo­tion for reciprocal discovery (in which the court asks one party to share all available evidence with the other) and a motion to admit evidence of other conduct as appli­cable to the case. All three granted motions were made by the State of Kansas.

Marek did not take action on a motion to review Buchheit’s bond, however. He also did not take ac­tion on the state’s motion for re­quested redactions of certain un­specified evidence, saying “I don’t know where we are with that yet.”