Darrell Brooks pleaded he was ‘not some monster’ during prior sex abuse case
Accused Wisconsin parade attacker Darrell Brooks once pleaded with a Nevada judge that he was “not some monster” — despite repeatedly violating probation after admitting he molested a 15-year-old girl, court records obtained exclusively by The Post show.
Brooks also begged Nevada Judge Robert Perry to cut him a break in 2007, claiming in a handwritten letter that he was raised without a father and was diagnosed bipolar and manic depressive when he was just 12, according to the records.
“I didn’t have a father growing up, so my mom was stuck raising me and my older sister,” Brooks wrote on July 9, 2007. “We were on welfare for most of my childhood in Milwaukee, Wis. My father was an alcoholic who was very abusive to my mom.”
“My father’s dad was also an alcoholic,” he wrote. “I grew up in the inner city full of drugs and prostitution.”
Despite penning a sob story to the judge, Brooks repeatedly violated a stay-away order and contacted his underage victim — whom he impregnated, the records show.
He stole a phone card from another inmate while at the Washoe County jail to obsessively call the teen, and confronted her at a local bus stop just six days after being released from jail, the records show.
Brooks, now 39, eventually skipped out on the case, forfeiting a $10,000 bond and embarking on a criminal career that authorities say culminated with the deadly vehicular attack on the Waukesha Christmas parade Sunday that killed six and injured 62 others.
The ex-con was charged this week with five counts of first-degree intentional homicide in Waukesha and ordered held on $5 million bail — and will face a sixth count following the death of an 8-year-old boy who died as a result of his injuries.
At his first court appearance this week, prosecutors said Brooks had a lengthy criminal history that included arrests in three states — Wisconsin, Georgia and Nevada.
His first of three Nevada arrests involved the 2006 sexual abuse of the teenager, whose name is being withheld by The Post because she is the victim of a sex crime.
In a bizarre and vulgar YouTube rant he posted online a decade later, Brooks claimed, “I didn’t know the bitch was 16,” and claimed that he was a victim.
According to court papers, Brooks made the same claim to the judge in Nevada in 2007 — and tried to pin the blame on the victim, who was still shy of her 16th birthday.
“I never knew she was going on 16,” he wrote to Perry. “She had me fooled. She should be an actress. I didn’t know until she was pregnant. She said she didn’t tell me ’cause she knew I wouldn’t have been with her.”
“Her mom said it was not the first time she did this,” he said. “She did this before also.”
Brooks was initially busted in the case on Sept. 28, 2006, and charged with statutory sexual seduction and contributing to the delinquency of a minor after allegedly having sex with the teenager at an apartment in the city of Sparks.
He claimed in the documents that he was an out-of-work janitor.
He settled the case by pleading guilty to the first charge but was ordered not to contact the victim, her mother or grandmother. He was also to remain in jail until he could be placed in a post-release treatment program.
However, parole officials reported that he was turned down at two possible sites.
One, operated by the Salvation Army, reported that “due to Mr. Brooks’ criminal history he would not be allowed into the program,” probation officials wrote.
“Therefore, the undersigned officer attempted to place Mr. Brooks into the Bristlecone Treatment Program,” the Feb. 21, 2007 report said.
“Mr. Brooks was denied acceptance into the program because he was unable to make the payment necessary for placement,” it said. “As of today’s date, there is no inpatient program in the greater Northern Nevada area that will accept Mr. Brooks….”
Instead, he was released into a halfway house the same day.
However, suspicious probation officers didn’t trust Brooks and trailed his young victim to her high school on Feb. 27, 2007 to see if Brooks would show up and contact her.
“A few moments later Mr. Brooks was observed arriving at the bus station,” court records show. “He went directly to the glass door near the victim and knocked on the door from the outside. The victim then came outside and met with Mr. Brooks.”
Brooks had already been peppering the girl and her family with phone calls using the stolen phone card, which was later found during a search of his jail cell.
A state Division of Parole and Probation report on Feb. 8, 2007 noted that the teen’s mother “stated that Brooks had been contacting her house on several occasions.”
“The victim’s mother indicated that Mr. Brooks was calling at all hours of the day and would often hang up the phone if she answered,” the report said. “The victim’s mother indicated that she had spoken with the Sparks Police Department regarding the phone calls.”
Nonetheless, Brooks was ultimately released — but later skipped out on the case.
The Nevada warrant for his arrest was still open when Wisconsin police arrested him in the Christmas parade attack on Sunday.
Brooks also had two pending Wisconsin criminal cases, including for the Nov. 2 attack on his ex-girlfriend at a nearby gas station — but was released on what prosecutors later acknowledged was “inappropriately low” bail of $1,000.
Brooks was arrested for violating the conditions of his sex offender registration in 2016.
