We Go That Extra Mile For You
 
Bluemel's Flowers For All Occasions

<< Back to Milwaukee News


Judge Thomas Cooper gets it right


15-year-old boy waived to adult court

Craig- NewsInMilwaukee

Milwaukee- Finally at least on Judge in MIlwaukee County has gotten it right.

Judge Thomas Cooper who sits in children's court waived Leon S. Barnes, 15, into adult court where he faces charges of 2 counts of being a party to a first degree sexual assault. If convicted Barnes faces more then 120 years in prison.

"This was a vicious, predatory, outrageous incident" Cooper said. "The question has to be asked: How can a whole bunch of kids gather in a house and victimize an 11-year-old girl...? The adults in the children's lives should have done better by them."

Barnes was the first juvenile to be waived into adult court. After Barnes heard he was being sent to adult court he showed little emotion.

The 11-year-old victim told police that she went to a house on Sept 4 in the 3700 block of N. 6th street to visit a 16-year-old girl.  After arriving the older girl to her to a bedroom where she was directed to have sex with three boys, one whom happened to be Leon S. Barnes.

Accordining to the criminal complaint, she then was taken down to the basement where she estimated there were a dozen more boys and men.  She identified Barnes as one of them and told police she has sexual contact with everyone there, the complaint says. She said her hair was pulled and she was urinated on while others laughed at her.

Assistant District Attorney Matt Torbenson noted that on Sept 1, Barnes was released to a residential treatment center from Ethan Allen School in the town of Delafield, where he was serving a one-year sentence for auto theft, battery, and disorderly conduct. On Sept 2, two days before the sexual assault---he ran away.

When Judge Cooper asked Barnes mother if she waould like to say anything, she replied by saying "I don't know what to say, your honor" she said. He has been in and out of foster homes. It all started with my drug abuse. As a parent, I did not know how to be a mother. Some of it was my fault, and some of it was not my fault. I had eight children and I am a single mother. She told Cooper she has been drug free for six years.