The heir to a Texas oil fortune has been ordered to pay $1.1 billion in damages for brutally beating his two-year-old stepson, condemning the boy to a wheelchair, a ventilator, and around-the-clock care.
The whopping payout is the largest award in U.S. history for assault on a child, the attorneys for the child’s mother said.
Charles Edwin Brooks Jr., 34, who pleaded guilty to the 2021 assault in 2023 and is incarcerated, was hammered by a jury who ruled in favor of his ex-wife, Madison Ball, and the boy’s father, Steven Sampson, who brought the civil case.
Brooks, described by the New York Post as “an unemployed trust-fund baby” is the great-grandson of Humble Oil founding investor Percy Turner. Humble eventually rebranded itself nationally as Exxon.
Ball’s son suffered a severe brain injury during the beating, according to the Buzbee Law Firm which pled the case in a Dallas court.
The boy also has a tracheotomy and relies on a mechanical ventilator to breath, while also being unable to walk.
According to a statement by the law firm:
In the civil lawsuit, the parents alleged that on the night of April 22, 2021, Brooks, who at the time was married to Madison Ball, was babysitting the minor child B.S., when he called Madison Ball (mother) to report that the child was unresponsive. When Madison Ball expressed alarm and insisted that Brooks call 911, he refused. Ball called instead. When first responders arrived, they found the child beaten severely, with bite marks on his legs. The child was non-responsive.
Brooks is already serving a 40-year sentence in a Texas prison after he pleaded guilty to aggravated assault on a child causing serious bodily harm.
The jury’s award includes $291 million in compensatory damages, $810 million in punitive damages, and $5 million for each of his parents, according to the law firm and court records.
The boy, identified only as B.S., is now seven years old.
Madison Ball entrusted Brooks to watch the child while she was at work, according to the lawsuit. Brooks reportedly claimed he was going to visit a grandparent in a Dallas hospital and took the boy with him.
Plaintiff’s attorney argued no such visit took place and instead the stepdad had beaten the boy, later calling his wife and claiming the child had fallen off a table and was unresponsive.
He then ignored her pleas to call 911, according to court documents, insisting the boy would “sleep it off.”
He also reportedly threatened Ball that he would “snap her neck” and “fucking kill her” if she called 911.
The mother called anyway.
After being arrested, Brooks was released on $250,000 bond but cut off his ankle monitor and attempted to flee from justice in 2021, only to be found later at a sports bar in South Texas, according to TXK Today.
The plaintiff’s lawyers argued Brooks was “a career criminal with prior arrests for theft, aggravated robbery, gun charges and drug possession,” the Post reported.
“We claim to value children in our society. This Texas jury stepped up and showed that. Don’t mess with Texas children,” plaintiffs’ lawyer Tony Buzbee said. “I hope that through this verdict this precious child gets all the care he will need and hopefully make his life as good as it can be made under the circumstances.”
It has not been reported if Brooks has access to the funds needed to pay the massive award, which presumably would come from his family’s oil fortune.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more
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