“At a trial, this is absolutely an issue,” Brown said, but not at the probable cause stage of the case.

There was also some wrangling about how to label the women in court filings. Prosecutors have referred to them as Victim 1 and Victim 2, but Cephus’ lawyers said that is unfairly prejudicial to Cephus. In their filings, they have referred to the women by their true initials, which Brown said comes too close to identifying them.

Brown asked that defense submissions containing the initials be sealed, but Karofsky declined to do that.

In the end, at Karofsky’s suggestion, they settled on calling the first woman “AB” and the second woman “XY” in future court filings.

After the hearing, Stilling said she and other Cephus supporters were “disappointed” by Karofsky’s rulings Tuesday.

The preliminary hearing itself was brief, consisting of testimony by Madison police Detective Julie Johnson that mirrored information in the criminal complaint. Meyer asked a number of questions that drew objections from Brown, which were sustained because they sought information the defense is not yet entitled to have.