Historic $1B Awarded to Texarkana Family in ‘Largest Child Abuse Verdict in U.S. History’

A Dallas County jury has handed down what attorneys are calling the largest child abuse verdict in U.S. history, as they awarded $1 billion to a Texarkana mother and her family after a brutal 2021 attack left her young son permanently disabled.

It's hard to believe that this horrible crime of child abuse took place five years ago.

Details of the Verdict

The verdict centers around a now 7-year-old boy, Blake, who was just 2 years old at the time of the assault.

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Jurors found Charles Brooks Jr. responsible for the abuse. The total award includes $291 Million in compensatory damages to the child and $810 million in punitive damages that will go to the child and his parents.

Brooks is a trust fund heir to one of the original investors of Humble Oil, the company that would later become ExxonMobil. He is currently serving a 40-year prison sentence after he pleaded guilty in 2023 to injury of a child.

Here's What Happened in 2021

According to CBS News, court records show the child’s mother, Madison Ball, trusted Brooks, her husband and stepfather to the boy at the time, to watch her son. He claimed he needed to visit his grandfather in a Dallas hospital and took the toddler with him, but investigators found that to be a lie. Then he called Ball and told her that the child had fallen off a table and was unresponsive.

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Instead, prosecutors say the child was severely beaten and abused.

Ball asked to FaceTime her son and saw he was barely breathing. The lawsuit states Brooks claimed the child had been revived in an ice bath and would “sleep it off.” He refused to call for help and allegedly threatened her when she tried to intervene. Ball called 911 anyway.

Lifelong Impact on the Child

Doctors later found that the child had suffered a severe brain bleed, traumatic brain injury, bite marks, and extensive organ damage. He spent months in the ICU in a medically induced coma.

Today, he is bedridden, he is dependent on a breathing machine, and he will require lifelong, around-the-clock care. His mother says he was once a healthy, energetic toddler before the attack.

Brooks, originally from Atlanta, Texas, was arrested 11 days after the incident and later fled before being captured in South Texas.

Attorneys say that while the verdict is historic, cases involving awards this large are often appealed and could be reduced. Our heartfelt prayers are going to Blake and his family.