Wichita ? Prosecutors have agreed to curtail use of the word “victim” during the trial of a Newton couple charged with physically and sexually abusing residents of a home for the mentally ill.

Arlan Kaufman, 68, and Linda Kaufman, 62, face 34 federal counts – including health care fraud, forced labor and holding clients in involuntary servitude – related to the treatment of mentally ill residents at the Kaufman House Residential Treatment Center.

They have pleaded not guilty to all counts. Their trial is set to begin Oct. 4 in Wichita.

Defense attorneys Steve Joseph and Tom Haney argued that the word “victim” violates their clients’ constitutional right to be presumed innocent because the term implies guilt.

Before the judge could rule on a request to keep prosecutors from using the word, the government agreed not to use it except in its closing arguments, assistant U.S. Atty. Tanya Treadway said.

Prosecutors plan to present their evidence over three weeks, with the defense taking slightly more than a week to present its case.

U.S. District Judge Monti Belot has turned aside a suggestion that videotapes and other evidence be shown only to the jury.

“The public is entitled to know what the evidence is,” Belot said.

Prosecutors contend some residents were forced to perform sex acts under the guise of group therapy. About 30 videotapes of what the couple called “nude therapy” sessions were seized from their home in 2001 as part of a Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services investigation that resulted in the suspension of Arlan Kaufman’s social work license.

The government also intends to show that residents were forced to tear down a barn and repair fences in the nude.

The government’s indictment also alleges Medicare fraud, mail fraud, manufacture of false documents and obstruction of a federal audit.

The Kaufmans maintain they provided legitimate care for their patients. They say the strange behavior, including the nudity, comes from the patients’ mental disorders.

The defense contends the former residents, most of whom suffer from various forms of schizophrenia, were unable to work or to support or care for themselves.