Possession of bestiality porn, soliciting a minor
Kerrville, TX (US)

Incident Date: Monday, Jan 31, 2005
County: Kerr

Disposition: Not Charged

Person of Interest: Jonathan Ward Brooke

Jonathan Ward Brooke, a 54-year-old Kerrville veterinarian, was sentenced March 22 to five years in prison for online solicitation of a minor.

It took the 12-person jury took nearly four hours to deliberate.

On March 21, the jury convicted Brooke of the second-degree felony, which carries a punishment of between two and 20 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine.

After Brooke's sentence was read, David Sergi, Brooke's attorney, turned to Brooke to try to comfort him. Sergi declined to comment. Family members sat teary-eyed.

Just minutes before, they had relayed comments of support to Brooke. "Stay strong," said one family member.

Brooke was arrested July 13, 2005, in the parking lot of a Jack-in-the-Box in Buda, Texas. He arranged to meet a "13-year-old girl," there through several online chats.

The girl turned out to be an investigator in the cyber crimes unit of the Texas Attorney General's Office.

The case was tried in the 216th Judicial District Court with Emil Karl Prohl, district judge for the 198th Judicial District, presiding.

Brooke also faces a charge of possession of child pornography in Kerr County and charges of attempted aggravated sexual assault of a child and attempted sexual performance by a child in Hays County. Trial dates are pending in those cases.

During the sentencing phase, Sergi called 18 people to testify. They included Brooke; his wife, Chantal Brooke; his ex-wife, Linda Thurier; his 24-year-old daughter, Julie Brooke; his sister, Victoria Van Dooren; a computer forensics expert; three psychologists; several long-time friends; two veterinarian friends; a new friend from a men's sexual support group in San Antonio; and the secretary of the First Presbyterian Church in Kerrville.

All of the defense witnesses asked the jury to grant Brooke probation instead of jail time.

Angela Goodwin, an assistant attorney general in the Texas Attorney General's Office and lead prosecutor in the case, argued Brooke should get a minimum of 10 years in prison. She said his online solicitation had escalated from adult sexual conversations in 1998 to Web cams of him performing a sex act in 2000, and ultimately, to the setting up of a meeting with someone he believed to be a 13-year-old girl in 2005.

Goodwin told jurors that Brooke had "deceived" and "lied" to the people who were closest to him. She said Brooke "concealed" a part of his life and still believed he hadn't done anything wrong - a sign he wasn't rehabilitating.

She asked the jury to consider the images of partially nude teenage girls and dozens of bestiality videos found on Brooke's computer. Goodwin also asked jurors to think about the list found on top of Brooke's computer that noted personal information for the investigator's online profile and three other teenage girls.

But the defense argued Brooke was a good candidate for rehabilitation and presented psychological evaluations that called Brooke a "low-risk" offender.

"He's not a rapist, not a child molester," said John Matthew Fabian, a forensic and clinical psychologist. "He's a noncontact sex offender."

In his report, Fabian said, Brooke used the Internet as an avenue to deal with his unhappiness, loneliness, boredom and sexual release. His sexual behaviors suggested some elements of paraphilia sexual disorder and a hypersexual disorder.

Chantal Brooke, Jonathan Brooke's wife, testified the couple had grown apart and become were more like roommates after their move to Kerrville. She cried as she asked the jury to let him be a part of the community.

"He's a good person," Chantal Brooke said. "A good person with a good heart. ... He's an excellent father. He loves the children dearly."

Thurier, his ex-wife, testified that she had traveled from Canada with serious health problems to tell the jury he had been an excellent father to their now 24-year-old daughter.

But Goodwin asked Thurier about the drugs the couple had used while they were married and Thurier testified they had used marijuana and cocaine and experimented with heroin and methamphetamines.

References

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