In a controversial move, the defendants accused of sexually assaulting and abandoning LSU cheerleader Madison Brooks are utilizing several legal strategies to evade justice before their trial, as reported by the Daily Mail.
The individuals involved, Casen Carver, 22, Desmond Carter, 21, and Kaivon Washington, 21, are confronting numerous rape charges connected to the tragic January 2023 incident that left the 19-year-old victim abandoned on the side of a busy highway in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The trial for Carter is set to commence on Monday. Meanwhile, Carver faces charges of video voyeurism along with first and third-degree rape, with his courtroom proceedings scheduled for November 30.
Sadly, after being left on the road, Madison was struck by an Uber driver who was unaware of her presence in the dimly lit conditions, leading to injuries that claimed her life at the hospital.
As Carter’s trial approaches, the Daily Mail uncovers that the defendants have resorted to various tactics to avoid going to trial, including an effort by Carter’s lawyers to prevent Madison’s family from wearing her favorite color during the proceedings.
The 21-year-old’s legal team had argued that the family dressing in pink constituted a threat directed at the jury and would violate his right to a fair trial.
But furious prosecutor Sonya Cardia-Porter hit back, calling the move an ‘absurd exaggeration’ and ‘unpersuasive’ and noted that Madison’s family are ‘silent, passive spectators’.
Last week, Judge Gail Ray ruled the family would be allowed to wear pink during next week’s proceedings but banned photographs of the 19-year-old from being worn on t-shirts.
Madison Brooks, 19, was fatally struck by a car after she was allegedly sexually assaulted in the back of a car by several men after a night out near Louisiana State University’s campus in January 2023
Kaivon Washington, 21, Casen Carver, 22, and Desmond Carter, 21, are all facing rape charges. Carter’s trial is set to begin August 17, while Carver’s has been pushed to November. A trial date for Washington is yet to be set
The move is just one of a multitude of wheezes the defense teams have used to get off the hook and, despite the trial being imminent, have filed a motion trying to dismiss Carter’s first-degree rape charge and try him only on a second charge of third-degree rape, claiming the two are the same and would thus cause him to face double jeopardy.
Co-defendant Carver’s trial has already been pushed back until November after the prosecution made repeated attempts to boot Judge Ray off the case after Carver was caught sending texts telling his father ‘she (Ray) knows how to help us’ after discovering her son is a convicted rapist.
Ray’s 46-year-old son Nelson Taylor was convicted in 1997 of multiple counts of rape and burglary involving teenage girls.
Carver was also involved in another egregious legal maneuver when he attempted to sue Madison’s mother Ashley Baustert for defamation over an interview she gave to veteran broadcaster Nancy Grace in 2024.
The 22-year-old sued along with Washington’s uncle Everett Lee, 32, who was also in the car on the night of Madison’s death, although the rape charges against him were dismissed without prejudice by a Louisiana Grand Jury.
According to Carver and Lee, Baustert defamed them by implying the pair are rapists in a July 2023 Fox Nation special program called ‘Left For Dead: The Case of Madison Brooks’.
Baustert had said when asked if she’d been to any hearings in the case: ‘It’s just too hard. I know what they’re going to say. It’s…
‘Of course, they’re going to say what they’re going to say. They’re going to victim blame and act like this was a consensual act. We all know it wasn’t. It’s very hurtful to listen to it.’
A 29-second clip from the night of her death shows Madi appearing to tell the Desmond Carter, then 17, to ‘get out’ of the car so she can ‘Uber on her own’
Other footage released by authorities shows the student running after the group of men on the night she died
The case was later thrown out by New Orleans judge Carl J Barbier.
Madison’s family are now planning to attend the trials of Carter, Carver and Washington – for whom a trial date is yet to be set.
In an interview with the Daily Mail last week, Baustert said she believed it was her ‘duty’ to be in court for the legal proceedings.
She said: ‘My immediate family plan to attend every day of the trial. It’s going to be hard, especially because I have two other children at home.
‘Separating those feelings and then coming home and being a mom is going to be a challenge.
‘Honestly, I don’t know how I prepare. I’m just going to take it moment by moment, day by day.
‘If I need to leave the courtroom, I’ll quietly excuse myself. But I’m going to try my best to be there. I feel it’s my duty to be there for her.’
Madison died in January 2023 after meeting the four men in Reggie’s Bar – a popular student hangout that has since been shut down.
Louisiana born and raised, the sassy and adventurous cheerleader intended to major in communications
Brooks’s mother Ashley Baustert, will come face to face with one of the three men accused of attacking her daughter on August 17
The men had offered to give Madison a lift home after she lost her phone and friends, with surveillance footage showing the quintet leaving the bar in which the LSU student appears visibly drunk.
Troubling video filmed by Carver and included in the prosecution case shows the now 22-year-old laughing and telling the camera: ‘These guys are crazy! They finna [fixing to] rape her.’
Prosecutors claim Madison’s muffled voice can be heard above blaring music yelling: ‘Get off!’
And, they say, the men then dropped her off on Burbank Drive, alone in the dark at 3am, where she was hit by an Uber that killed her.