Posted on 01/14/2005 1:56:35 AM PST by kattracks
A 53-year-old Vietnam vet with a history of sexually assaulting little girls was sentenced yesterday to life in prison, but not before the parents of one of his victims had their say."Our lives have changed," said the father of a young girl who was sodomized and sexually assaulted by Harry Brooks. "I can't even let my daughter stay at a friend's house because I am afraid someone will touch her or hurt her again.
"At night, she screams and still can not sleep because of the attack. You've done a despicable thing. I hope you rot in jail, and I hope you are tortured."
Brooks was sentenced for the July 30, 2002, sodomy and sexual assault of two Bronx girls, ages 6 and 8, on the roof of their their apartment building.
After luring the girls to the roof, he hit the older girl, burned the other with a cigarette and ordered the girls to undress. Brooks then sodomized them.
A month later, on Aug. 5, 2002, Brooks struck again. This time, he followed two girls, 9 and 10, into an elevator in their apartment building on Boston Road.
Brooks punched both girls, then demanded their money. When the younger sister pushed the emergency stop button on the elevator and both started screaming, Brooks fled.
But Brooks tripped himself up - literally - when he slipped and tumbled down the stairs, breaking his ankle.
Yesterday, he showed up in a wheelchair at court where Bronx Assistant District Attorney Astrid Borgstedt recommended the maximum sentence.
"Mr. Brooks is a serial pedophile who has focused on young women and little girls since 1971," she told Supreme Court Justice Barbara Newman.
"The defendant hasn't learned from his past incarceration. He spent 20 years in jail for the same thing, came out and did it again and again. He committed unspeakable sexual assaults against two sets of little girls."
The judge said that after reviewing Brooks' military records, probation records, lengthy criminal history and the facts of the case, she was compelled to give him the maximum sentence.
"You are extremely dangerous and have committed serious crimes," said Newman.
"You are a menace to society."
I agree with everyone's outrage about the way this story was written, but it would be more effective if some of us wrote the editor of this rag to raise hell about the obvious bias. Just a suggestion.
Anyone who reads into the inference that Vietnam caused this guy to become a pedophile is an idiot. If the author intended for that, then he/she is an idiot as well. In other words, liberals are idiots.
Agreed. Have. Also suggested that if the "court" took the guys word ( or used only records suspect provided) for being Vietnam vet, then it might pay to have his real DD-214 checked by FOI. Prisons and homeless shelters are full of wantabees - and every one of them was a Green Beret, Marine, or Ranger, with lots of medals!
You refer to this prisoner not lasting long in prison, yet the registry of pedophiles is full of them. I guess maybe they do survive after all.
I think most papers will refer to them as whatever they have done most notably in their life.
When a TV star from a long forgotten series gets arressted it is always ex-actor so and so has been arrested.
I like the way you think!
Why is this sick $@@#%! still sucking oxygen, let alone out on the streets?
Look at all the stories about J.F.Kerry. Most of them talked about his "long" 4 month tour in Vietnam like he was Gen. McArthur or something.
Maybe this guy enjoys that sort of treatment.
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