Chesapeake Man Sentenced to Multiple Life Sentences for Sex Crimes

For immediate release: November 1, 2024.

Chesapeake, Va. - Matthew R. Hamel, Commonwealth's Attorney for the City of Chesapeake, announces that Vernon Brooks, 64, of Chesapeake VA, was sentenced to two life sentences plus 7 years for 18 convictions, specifically 9 counts of Taking Indecent Liberties with a Child as a Custodian, 7 counts of Aggravated Sexual Battery, and 2 counts of Object Sexual Penetration.

The defendant was convicted after a three-day jury trial in March of this year. Judge Marjorie A. Taylor Arrington, who presided over the trial, sentenced the defendant to 2 life sentences, plus 185 years and suspended 178 of those years, resulting in an active sentence of 2 life sentences plus seven years in the Virginia Department of Corrections. The defendant will spend the remainder of his life in prison.

This case stems from a series of assaults over the course of several months in 2018. During that time period the defendant lived with the victim, who was 11 years old, and was in a supervisory or caretaking role. At trial, she described how on numerous occasions he called her into his bedroom and sexually assaulted her. She described in detail the wide range of specific acts he made her participate in.

This case was investigated by Detective H. Rinus of the Chesapeake Police Department's Special Victims Unit. The case was prosecuted by Assistant Commonwealth's Attorneys Devon Parsons and Arielle Mitchell, with significant assistance from Angela Mingin from the Chesapeake Sheriff's Office Victim / Witness program and the CHKD Child Advocacy Center. Point of contact for media inquiries: Gloria Nuss at 757-382-3213.