The men charged in connection with the alleged rape of LSU cheerleader Madison Brooks have pursued a series of legal maneuvers ahead of trial, Our News Outlet can reveal.
Casen Carver, 22, Desmond Carter, 21, and Kaivon Washington, 21, face multiple rape-related charges stemming from the January 2023 incident that ended with 19-year-old Madison being left along a busy four-lane road in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Carter is scheduled to stand trial beginning Monday, while Carver — who is charged with video voyeurism as well as first- and third-degree rape — is set to appear before a jury on November 30.
Madison was later struck by an Uber driver who could not see her in the darkness as she lay in the roadway. She was taken to a hospital, where she died from her injuries.
With Carter’s trial now approaching, Our News Outlet can disclose the efforts made by all three defendants to avoid or limit proceedings, including an attempt by Carter’s attorneys to stop Madison’s grieving relatives from wearing her favorite color in court.
Lawyers for the 21-year-old argued that family members appearing in pink could be viewed as an improper message to jurors and might undermine his right to a fair trial.
Prosecutor Sonya Cardia-Porter strongly pushed back, describing the argument as an “absurd exaggeration” and “unpersuasive,” while emphasizing that Madison’s relatives would be “silent, passive spectators” in the courtroom.
Last week, Judge Gail Ray ruled that the family may wear pink during the upcoming proceedings, though she barred them from wearing T-shirts displaying photographs of the 19-year-old.
Madison Brooks, 19, was fatally struck by a car after she was allegedly sexually assaulted in the back of a car by several men after a night out near Louisiana State University’s campus in January 2023
Kaivon Washington, 21, Casen Carver, 22, and Desmond Carter, 21, are all facing rape charges. Carter’s trial is set to begin August 17, while Carver’s has been pushed to November. A trial date for Washington is yet to be set
The move is just one of a multitude of wheezes the defense teams have used to get off the hook and, despite the trial being imminent, have filed a motion trying to dismiss Carter’s first-degree rape charge and try him only on a second charge of third-degree rape, claiming the two are the same and would thus cause him to face double jeopardy.
Co-defendant Carver’s trial has already been pushed back until November after the prosecution made repeated attempts to boot Judge Ray off the case after Carver was caught sending texts telling his father ‘she (Ray) knows how to help us’ after discovering her son is a convicted rapist.
Ray’s 46-year-old son Nelson Taylor was convicted in 1997 of multiple counts of rape and burglary involving teenage girls.
Carver was also involved in another egregious legal maneuver when he attempted to sue Madison’s mother Ashley Baustert for defamation over an interview she gave to veteran broadcaster Nancy Grace in 2024.
The 22-year-old sued along with Washington’s uncle Everett Lee, 32, who was also in the car on the night of Madison’s death, although the rape charges against him were dismissed without prejudice by a Louisiana Grand Jury.
According to Carver and Lee, Baustert defamed them by implying the pair are rapists in a July 2023 Fox Nation special program called ‘Left For Dead: The Case of Madison Brooks’.
Baustert had said when asked if she’d been to any hearings in the case: ‘It’s just too hard. I know what they’re going to say. It’s…
‘Of course, they’re going to say what they’re going to say. They’re going to victim blame and act like this was a consensual act. We all know it wasn’t. It’s very hurtful to listen to it.’
A 29-second clip from the night of her death shows Madi appearing to tell the Desmond Carter, then 17, to ‘get out’ of the car so she can ‘Uber on her own’
Other footage released by authorities shows the student running after the group of men on the night she died
The case was later thrown out by New Orleans judge Carl J Barbier.
Madison’s family are now planning to attend the trials of Carter, Carver and Washington – for whom a trial date is yet to be set.
In an interview with Our News Outlet last week, Baustert said she believed it was her ‘duty’ to be in court for the legal proceedings.
She said: ‘My immediate family plan to attend every day of the trial. It’s going to be hard, especially because I have two other children at home.
‘Separating those feelings and then coming home and being a mom is going to be a challenge.
‘Honestly, I don’t know how I prepare. I’m just going to take it moment by moment, day by day.
‘If I need to leave the courtroom, I’ll quietly excuse myself. But I’m going to try my best to be there. I feel it’s my duty to be there for her.’
Madison died in January 2023 after meeting the four men in Reggie’s Bar – a popular student hangout that has since been shut down.
Louisiana born and raised, the sassy and adventurous cheerleader intended to major in communications
Brooks’s mother Ashley Baustert, will come face to face with one of the three men accused of attacking her daughter on August 17
The men had offered to give Madison a lift home after she lost her phone and friends, with surveillance footage showing the quintet leaving the bar in which the LSU student appears visibly drunk.
Troubling video filmed by Carver and included in the prosecution case shows the now 22-year-old laughing and telling the camera: ‘These guys are crazy! They finna [fixing to] rape her.’
Prosecutors claim Madison’s muffled voice can be heard above blaring music yelling: ‘Get off!’
And, they say, the men then dropped her off on Burbank Drive, alone in the dark at 3am, where she was hit by an Uber that killed her.
