The judge overseeing the gang-rape trial of one of Madi Brooks’ alleged attackers is facing scrutiny as her son is attempting to quash his own convictions for a series of rapes.
District Judge Gail Horne Ray is set to preside over the trial of Desmond Carter, 21, on August 17, as he is accused of sexually assaulting Brooks, a 19-year-old Louisiana State University (LSU) student in a car along with two other men in East Baton Rouge, Louisiana in January 2023.
Brooks was then kicked out of the car, it is claimed and struck and killed by another passing car shortly afterwards.
Last month, Judge Ray’s son Nelson Taylor, 46, was hauled back into court as he attempts to have multiple convictions of rape set aside.
In 1997, Taylor pleaded guilty to three counts of forcible rape, and five counts of aggravated burglary, for a series of sex attacks carried out when he was a high school student, reports WBRZ.
The attacks stretched from late 1995 to the spring of 1996, and saw Taylor break into his victim’s homes armed with a gun or a knife.
The then-17-year-old would wear a mask during the rapes and use tape to cover the girls’ eyes and mouths, prosecutors said, with Taylor’s plea deal allowing him to avoid a life sentence.
He received a sentence of 50 years at the time, but was released on parole in 2022 as a Tier 3 sex offender.
Taylor is now trying to have his rape charges and their sentenced set aside, arguing that a similar motion in 2001 was never ruled on by a judge.
He initially filed in November, but the case was delayed as every judge in Louisiana’s 19th Judicial District Court system recused themselves because he is Ray’s son. The Louisiana Supreme Court has since assigned retired First Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Michael McDonald to handle the case.