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Lennie Dwayne Brooks, 22, also will be responsible, along with his co-defendants, for paying $2,182.49 in restitution to the Crime Victims Reparations Board. He was given credit for 280 days served in jail and will complete his sentence in the St. Cloud, Minn., correctional facility, where he is already serving a 68-month prison sentence for selling three grams or more of crack cocaine in Olmsted County in 2006.
Brooks stood up in Winona County District Court and accepted responsibility for his actions. He then apologized to the victim and his family for the “trouble and pain” he caused them.
“Not a day goes by I don’t think about this,” he said.
Brooks would have faced between four and five years in prison, but because he committed the crime in a group of three people, an upward departure from state sentencing guidelines was allowed. Despite tacking an extra two years onto Brooks’ sentence, Judge Jeff Thompson said he would not object if the Department of Corrections offered to place Brooks into a “boot camp” style program that would drastically reduce his sentence to about six months in prison and a year of intense supervision followed by probation for the remainder of his sentence.
“There are not many crimes scarier than a home invasion,” Thompson said. “I don’t minimize the seriousness for two seconds.”
To illustrate his point, he recalled the murder of his mother, which occurred in 1963 during a home invasion, and the subsequent conviction of his father, T. Eugene Thompson, for hiring the killer. Judge Thompson used his own experiences as an example and a warning to Brooks. He advised him to use his time behind bars to seek education and turn his life around to become a better role model for his two children, ages 1 and 3, and not end up like T. Eugene, who spent 20 years in the Stillwater prison.
Brooks said nothing further, and the judge read his sentence.
Brooks entered a plea agreement June 13 in which he pleaded guilty to first-degree burglary and agreed to go to prison for 6½ years and assist the Winona County Attorney’s Office in prosecuting his co-defendants. Ten other charges of assault with a dangerous weapon, kidnapping and terroristic threats were dismissed.
According to his testimony and the criminal complaint, Brooks, James Andrew Lindsey, 23, and Dennis Lee Richardson Jr., 23, entered a man’s home in the 650 block of West Fifth Street on May 16, 2007. Once inside, the man was tied up with duct-tape and pistol-whipped, causing several broken bones in his face and bleeding on his brain. The three invaders found a bedroom safe and stole about $800 cash and about $4,000 in commemorative state quarters.
All three men were charged with 11 felonies.
Lindsey has since been convicted of burglary and assault and sentenced to 20 years of probation.
Richardson is currently in custody in Olmsted County. A warrant has been issued to bring him to Winona.
Contact Kevin Behr at (507) 453-3524 or at kbehr@winonadailynews.com.
