Indictment says defendant sought hitman to kill victim, prosecutor

Bill Gang

Thursday, Oct. 21, 1999 | 10:02 a.m.

A teenager facing a December trial in the robbery and sexual assault of an 86-year-old woman has been accused of trying to hire a hitman to kill the woman as well as a deputy district attorney.

And indictment returned Wednesday alleges that 19-year-old Larry Dewayne Brooks offered about $500 through a cellmate for the murders. That prisoner, however, went to authorities.

Metro Police Detective Michael Givens went undercover in the Clark County Detention Center as a purported hitman and provided testimony to a grand jury about the alleged solicitations by Brooks to kill the elderly victim and Deputy District Attorney Teresa Lowry, who is prosecuting him in the robbery and sexual assault.

Brooks, who is being held on $100,000 bail, is scheduled to be arraigned Oct. 28 in District Judge Mark Gibbons' courtroom on the two charges that carry two- to 15-year sentences if he is convicted.

Chief District Judge Lee Gates set bail for Brooks at $500,000 after Deputy District Attorney Valerie Adair detailed the solicitation case and labeled the defendant a "very dangerous" man.

The potential conviction on the solicitation to commit murder charge may be the least of Brooks' courtroom problems.

If he is convicted in the April sexual assault, kidnapping and robbery during a break-in at the elderly woman's home, he would face a mandatory life prison term, while the lightest sentence would keep him behind bars for 10 years.

Lowry is still prosecuting him in that case despite the allegations he tried to have her killed.

At a preliminary hearing the 86-year-old victim told how her attacker forced his way into her home when she opened the door to his knocks.

The bandit demanded cash and her ATM card, threatening to kill her if she didn't comply, according to the testimony. When the woman defiantly responded that she could only die once, the man took about $40 in cash and the keys to her car, Lowry said.

Before he left, the woman testified, he assaulted her and then tied her to an ironing board with an electrical cord.

She freed herself after a few minutes and called police, who captured Brooks an hour later in her car.

Lowry said he was carrying the exact amount of cash that was stolen from the victim and in the same denominations the woman said she lost.