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The son of the judge presiding over the gang rape cases of Louisiana State University student Madison Brooks before her death is a convicted serial rapist, according to media reports.
The trial for Desmond Carter, 21, one of the three men accused of raping Madison Brooks in a vehicle before her death in January 2023, is slated to go before Judge Gail Ray on Aug. 17, according to WBRZ.
Brooks was a 19-year-old LSU student when she was fatally struck by a car after a group of men allegedly raped her then dumped her out of a vehicle on a Baton Rouge highway in January 2023.
The judge’s bias and impartiality has come under fire as she represented her son, Nelson Taylor, 46, in his 1997 serial rape conviction, who recently reappeared in court to have his multiple convictions overturned, The Advocate reported.
The state previously moved to have Ray removed from the gang rape trials and in Nov. 2025, she was recused from the case.
District Attorney Hillar Moore’s office filed the recusal and said the request was based on previous rulings and Ray seeing evidence related to Brooks’ sexual history that was thrown out.
The document also included text messages from another defendant in the matter, Casen Carver, 22, to his father saying the judge’s “son was accused of rape a while back so she knows to help us,” WBRZ reported.
Carver’s attorney appealed the decision but eventually the state Supreme Court ruled that Ray could stay on the cases and that the state did not meet its burden for removal after the defense pushed for an appeal.
The judge’s son, who was 17-years-old at the time, pleaded guilty in 1997 to three counts of forcible rape and five counts of aggravated burglary in relation to a series of attacks he committed against multiple girls, some of which were his classmates, between the fall 1995 and spring 1996 when he was a high school student, The Advocate reported.
Taylor was sentenced to 50 year behind bars — but a post-conviction plea deal in 2001 dropped the burglary charges.
However, the practice of amending a plea agreement after a conviction was ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court in 2023.
The now-46-year-old was previously out on parole but was arrested in 2024 for obscenity.
Taylor returned to court on July 22, in an effort to have the multiple forcible rape convictions and their sentences set aside, The Advocate reported.
He argued that he had filed to have both his forcible rape and burglary convictions set aside while the window was still open in 2001 but was instead offered a post-conviction plea deal that led to the dismissal of the bugarly charges, according to The Advocate.
His attorneys argued that since that kind of deal has now been found unconstitutional, Taylor should be allowed to reenter a new guilty plea with a sentence no greater than the original.
The motion for Taylor’s hearing in July was originally filed in November but stalled as all of the 19th Judicial District Court judges and DA Moore’s office recused themselves over Taylor being Judge Ray’s son.
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