Brandon Brooks, the Hattiesburg attorney who recently has faced counts of impersonating another person, telephone harassment and misconduct, has been arrested and charged with one count of felony sexual battery.
Documents provided by the Forrest County Sheriff’s Office show that 45-year-old Brooks was taken into custody on October 5 via a capias warrant and booked into the Forrest County Correctional Facility. According the Section 97-3-95 of the 2020 Mississippi Code, a conviction of first-offense sexual battery can carry a prison sentence of up to 30 years, a fine of up to $10,000, or both.
Brooks’ legal troubles began late last year, when the Mississippi Bar Association accused him of 12 counts of misconduct, ranging from not providing services paid for, neglect and lack of communication, among other allegations. The bar’s complaint, which was filed December 15, 2022, with the Supreme Court’s clerk of its office of appeals, states that Brook was a member of the bar – and subject to the disciplinary jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Mississippi – during the times of all the complaints filed against him.
A full listing of the complaints can be found in a previous story at https://shorturl.at/ABDHR.
In late January, Brooks was found guilty in Lamar County Justice Court of one count each of impersonating another person on the Internet and telephone harassment after allegedly creating paying people to write false reviews and creating fake email and Facebook accounts.
He was ordered to pay $3,500 in restitution to Chris P. Lott, whose name Brooks allegedly used to create the fake account. The conviction came after Harley Dakota Norris, who worked as a legal assistant for Brooks, filed an affidavit against Brooks, stating that Brooks had paid other people to write about his law firm.
Norris also claimed to have personal knowledge that Brooks created numerous fake email accounts and Facebook pages, with one of the Facebook pages created under Lott’s name.
“The Facebook account of Chris P. Lott was used to write a false negative review of Schmidt Law Firm (on that firm’s) Facebook page,” Norris stated in the affidavit, which was filed on April 5, 2022. “Brandon L. Brooks requested that I back up his phones and computers so he can get rid of the data on any computers he has at the office and at home.”
Norris stated that she was made aware of the fake Facebook account of February 25, 2022, which Brooks allegedly identified Norris’s previous place of employment, where she went to high school and the city she lived in. According to Norris, Brooks used that information to damage Norris’s character, cause emotional stress, anxiety and depression.
“(It) placed me in a role of having to defend myself against other people’s opinion of me in the church,” the affidavit stated. “Brandon also used this fake profile to ‘friend request’ minor children, attack other attorneys (George Schmidt’s) business page and post disgusting comments relating to homosexuality, and inviting individuals in the same lifestyle by posting comments such as ‘sounds gay, I’m in.’”
Justice court documents also stated that Brooks impersonated another actual person by opening a profile on a social networking site, for purposes of harming, intimidating, threatening or defrauding another person. In addition, Brooks allegedly left seven harassing voicemails on January 24, 2022.
