Brian Wilson’s Former Keyboardist Arrested

Scott Montgomery Bennett, 51, was convicted in April of rape by instrumentation and sexual battery for the December 2014 incident at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino near Tulsa. On Tuesday, District Judge J. Dwayne Steidley sentenced Bennett to five years in prison and ordered him to register as a sex offender.

Bennett, of Los Angeles, performed on many of the former Beach Boy’s albums, including 2004’s “Brian Wilson Presents Smile.”

At trial in April, jurors were shown a surveillance video that was also described in a police affidavit. According to the Tulsa World (http://bit.ly/1rEOY51 ), the video shows Bennett encountering the woman in an elevator, then preventing her from leaving. The video then shows Bennett pulling down the woman’s pants in a hotel hallway and engaging in sexual contact.

“It is clear from watching the video that the victim is extreamly (sic) intoxicated and is unaware of her surroundings,” a Catoosa police officer wrote in the affidavit. “The subject however appears to be in complete control of his faculties.”

Bennett and the woman then went to a hotel room, prosecutors said. The end of the surveillance video showed Bennett leaving the woman in a hallway on the seventh floor, where she was later discovered and interviewed by police.

“It was in this line of questions I realized I had no recollection of how I got back to my hotel room or even how the evening ended,” the woman said in court Tuesday.

Bennett’s attorney, Shannon McMurray, immediately filed a notice of appeal after sentencing Tuesday. She said she wasn’t surprised at the sentence.

“I was certainly hopeful given the extensive information we put before the court on his history of being a really good person and this being an incident with two drunk people,” she said.

The judge set a hearing for July 5 on Bennett’s motion for a new trial and ruled that the surveillance video not be released to the public before then.

Attorney Gloria Allred, who attended Tuesday’s sentencing, said she is serving as a private lawyer for the victim and that they’re considering all legal options.

“The point was that she was vulnerable,” Allred said. “He took advantage of that, and she was very brave. I just commend her for her courage.”