12-yr old Brooke Bennett missing from Vermont.

[nurseronda]

Murdered Vermont Girl's Ex-Stepfather Sentenced to 16 Years in Prison on child pornography charges.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,...e=fnc/us/crime

[Dakota Valkyrie]

A Vermont man charged in the 2008 rape and murder of his 12-year-old niece continued trying to thwart investigators even after he was jailed, at one point soliciting a friend to send an e-mail message threatening to have a girl killed, federal prosecutors say.

In a new court filing, they say Michael Jacques planned a series of communications purporting to come from a child sex ring police have discredited as a fabrication.

Jacques solicited a friend in Arizona to send the e-mails for him, but the friend cooperated with authorities and the plan was thwarted, according to the 91-page document filed Monday in US District Court in Burlington.
[...]

Jacques allegedly used a 14-year-old girl to lure Brooke to his home by getting her to believe she would be a guest at a pool party. The 14-year-old told police she believed Brooke was destined for a child sex club called “Breckenridge’’ that the teen had been in since she was 9.

In the filing, government prosecutors said Jacques continued his online deception after being arrested for the killing.

In July 2008, he planned a series of coordinated e-mail messages to the girl, law enforcement and the media, arranging to have “an adult friend in Arizona’’ send them, according to the government’s motion.

He wrote out e-mail messages, along with instructions about how and when to send them. One was written for the 14-year-old with whom had communicated before Brooke’s death, threatening the girl’s little sister — who was 9 at the time.

It said the younger girl would “die like Brooke’’ if her older sister didn’t lie to police, according to the government’s motion, which said the scheme failed when the friend cooperated with authorities.
[...]

http://www.boston.com/news/local/ver...osecutors_say/

[Dakota Valkyrie]

The ex-stepfather of Brooke Bennett, the 12-year-old Braintree girl allegedly kidnapped, raped and killed by her uncle in 2008, has pleaded guilty in federal court in Alabama to possession of child pornography.

Raymond A. Gagnon, 42, of San Antonio, Texas, entered his plea Thursday before federal Judge C. Lynwood Smith Jr. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison last year to a similar child possession charge in San Antonio.
[...]

Gagnon also admitted Thursday that he engaged in sexual contact with an underage girl in Vermont. According to court documents in Vermont, he and Jacques engaged in simultaneous sex acts with the underage girl at a Royalton home in 2007.

Gagnon also admitted Thursday that, after leaving Texas to go to Vermont, he called a friend in San Antonio and instructed him to dispose of a safe that contained a laptop he had used to view Brooke's MySpace account, as well as "vast amounts" of child pornography.

Gagnon, presently serving his sentence on the Texas conviction, could be sentenced to as much as 10 additional years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the Alabama charge. He is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 22

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/a...rnography-case

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Citing public anger and death threats, lawyers for a man charged with killing his 12-year-old niece say in a new court filing that it’s impossible for him to get a fair trial in Vermont.

Defense attorneys say Michael Jacques has been the subject of so much press coverage and such vitriolic online posts that his trial should be moved to Albany, N.Y., to escape juror bias. In a motion filed late Thursday, they said both Jacques and his lawyers have been the subject of calls for death since he was charged in the 2008 slaying of Brooke Bennett of Braintree.
[...]

In the new defense filing, Jacques’ lawyers included 150 exhibits — newspaper articles, online stories, television and radio broadcasts, Facebook pages, Twitter tweets and blog entries — to buttress their claims, many suggesting various modes for killing, maiming or otherwise exacting revenge on Jacques, who has pleaded not guilty.

One suggests the death penalty for defense attorneys, and another says “ought to fry his lawyers.”
[...]

http://www.timesargus.com/article/20...49/1003/NEWS02

I wonder if anything from D'D made it into their "exhibits".

[Whisper]

Prosecutors: Murder suspect Jacques killed dog to intimidate girl into helping with Brooke Bennett plot
Randolph man facing potential death penalty for allegedly kidnapping, killing 12-year-old niece

Michael Stephen Jacques in Chelsea District Court in Chelsea, Vt.,

Federal prosecutors say murder suspect Michael Jacques once hung the body of a dog in the cellar of the home of an underage girl to convince her she would be killed if she did not engage in sex acts with him — a fear that eventually led her to help in his 2008 plot to kidnap and kill his 12-year-old niece, Brooke Bennett of Braintree."Jacques killed the family dog and hung it in the basement for (her) to find," prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Burlington wrote in a papers filed recently with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.
The information about Jacques’ alleged intimidation tactic was one of several previously undisclosed pieces of information contained in a 93-page document that paints the clearest picture yet of the government’s case against the convicted sex offender.
Jacques, 45, of Randolph is facing the federal death penalty if convicted of kidnapping and later drugging, raping and killing Brooke. He is jailed pending trial at a federal detention facility in New York.
A call to Jacques’ defense counsel was not immediately returned Wednesday afternoon.
Government lawyers are seeking a reversal of a lower court ruling by U.S. District Judge William Sessions III banning them from disclosing at Jacques’ trial allegations about prior rapes of other underage girls. Sessions also said prosecutors could not tell the jury details of a post-arrest scheme Jacques allegedly undertook to shift blame for Brooke’s killing to a fabricated ring of sexual predators.
Sessions, in a May 11 order at federal court in Burlington, said details about the prior rapes could not be used because the incidents did were unadjudicated — that is, did not result in a court judgment. The judge also ruled that use of an informant to gather information about Jacques’ alleged post-arrest conduct was improper.
In the new filing, federal prosecutors detailed how Jacques made the underage girl, identified as "J1" in court papers, believe that a phony international sex ring called Breckenridge was real. Authorities say Jacques fabricated the ring to manipulate the girl into sex acts.
He did so by creating two Breckenridge characters — Eric and Charles — and concocting emails from them to her that were alternately affectionate and threatening. The girl was 9 when she began receiving the emails, the motion states.
"Jacques led J1 to believe that Breckenridge required him to act as her ‘sexual trainer,’¤" the court filing stated. "When J1 protested, she received threats. ... The girl was also informed that her mother would be shot immediately if she did not comply."
The killing of the dog and another, unidentified pet were said to be proof Breckenridge’s threats were for real.
Among the other new disclosures in the filing:
Ö On June 29, 2008, four days after Bennett’s disappearance and three days before her body was found, police discovered evidence on Jacques’ laptop computer that he was the creator of the "Eric" and "Charles" characters and had sent the phony emails to J1. Jacques was arrested that day and charged i state court with sexually assaulting J1.
"Officials then interviewed J1 again at length," the filing stated. "Fearful of retribution by Breckenridge, the girl persisted in the false story. When confronted with copies of the e-mails, J1 tearfully insisted that her life, and that of her mother, were in danger."
Evidence gathered by police has indicated Jacques had the girl talk Brooke into coming to his home June 25, 2008, for a pool party on the premise that a boy she was interested in would be there. The girl also was persuaded to help Jacques mislead police in the days after Brooke went missing.
Ö One of the three cases involving claims that Jacques raped an underage girl did reach a criminal resolution in court, in contradiction to what Sessions wrote in his ruling. The case, in 1987, allegedly involved a 13-year-old friend of Jacques’ younger brother.
"He first gave the girl alcohol mixed with soda at his apartment in Barre, Vt., and then forced himself on her," the filing stated. "The girl reported that she was afraid Jacques would hit her if she resisted. When she told her mother, she was advised to forget it. However, the girl disclosed the rape to her elementary school counselor, who contacted police."
Jacques later admitted he "tried having intercourse" with the girl and was charged with sexual assault. He eventually received a three-year deferred sentence for felony lewd and lascivious conduct, according to court documents.

jacques’ attorneys also have appealed parts of Sessions’ ruling, arguing that the potential imposition of a death sentence would be unconstitutional. Their court papers are due in early January.
No hearings have been scheduled
[...]

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/a...111109034/1007