The judge handling the criminal cases against the men accused in the alleged gang rape of LSU student Madison Brooks before her death has a personal connection to a separate sexual assault case: her own son is a convicted sex offender, court records show.
Desmond Carter, 21, is scheduled to become the first of three defendants in the Brooks case to face trial, with jury selection set for Aug. 17. Judge Gail Ray is presiding over Carter’s case.
Brooks, a 19-year-old Louisiana State University student, was allegedly sexually assaulted after a night out in 2023. She was later hit by a vehicle and killed.
Records reviewed by News Outlet show Ray’s son, 46-year-old Nelson Taylor, was convicted in 1997 on multiple counts of forcible rape. Taylor is now seeking to have those convictions overturned, a development that has created a conflict involving the district attorney’s office and the 19th Judicial District Court, where his mother serves as a sitting judge.
Madison Brooks, left, died in 2023 after an alleged gang rape. Judge Gail Ray, right, is presiding over the cases against the accused men. (Ashley Baustert and 19th Judicial District Court)
Taylor admitted to raping multiple girls who attended high school with him between October 1995 and April 1996.
In December 2025, every judge in the 19th Judicial District Court recused from Taylor’s case. His attorney had filed a motion in November 2025 seeking to overturn the convictions, but conflicts of interest delayed the matter from being heard until late July.
East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore, who is prosecuting the men accused in Brooks’ alleged assault, has filed a motion seeking to remove Ray from the state’s case against Casen Carver. Carver’s trial is scheduled to begin in November, and he faces charges of video voyeurism, first-degree rape and third-degree rape.
Moore’s office filed the motion to recuse Ray from Carver’s case in November 2025, arguing she couldn’t judge fairly after the suspect waived his right to a jury trial, making her the sole decider of the case.
Prosecutors pointed to Ray’s previous exposure to evidence about Brooks’ alleged sexual history, which is being excluded from the trial, and previous rulings that went against them. Those included her order for the state to turn over data from Brooks’ cellphone, her initial ruling that evidence of Brooks’ activities in the 72 hours before the alleged rape would be admissible, and her decision ordering the state to produce items from Carver’s phone.
Desmond Carter, Kaivon Washington, and Casen Carver are all facing rape charges. (Getty Images:John Korduner/Icon Sportswire, East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office)
However, the prosecutor’s central argument for Ray’s recusal was a series of text messages between Carver and his father, where the rape suspect claimed “we are friends with” Ray, adding that “she knows to help us,” given the judge’s son is a convicted rapist.
In another text message, Carver told his father that “judge is on our side” and was “going to rule in our favor.”
An updated photo of LSU student Madison Brooks, who was fatally hit by a car after an alleged rape earlier this month. (Brooks family)
“These are not the ‘musings’ of a teenager who was hoping for the best outcome in his case. These are affirmative statements that show that Mr. Carver believed that the judge ‘knew to help him’ because of an alleged friendship with him or someone he knew and the judge’s son’s interactions with the criminal justice system,” 19th Judicial District Judge Bradley Myers wrote in his ruling.
The unusual combination of evidence, combined with Ray’s previous rulings and her son’s criminal history, is what prompted prosecutors to seek the recusal.
Ray was initially recused from the case in November 2025, but the Louisiana Supreme Court would later allow her to preside over Carver’s case.
Former Louisiana prosecutor Franz Borghardt explained to News Outlet why the text messages weren’t enough to get a recusal.
LSU student Madison Brooks was fatally hit by a car after an alleged rape. (The Brooks family)
“So the standard in Louisiana for recusal is, does the judge have a bias or a personal interest such that they can’t be fair and impartial to both sides?” Borghardt said. “And while those text messages on their face certainly present that, if someone says, ‘hey, this judge is a friend,’ doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re gonna be fair or impartial. And in fact, oftentimes judges that are friends will rule against you just as quickly as judges that dislike you.”
News Outlet reached out to Ray’s office and Taylor’s attorney for comment.
