A Dallas County jury concluded five years of legal pursuit on March 26, 2026, slapping a convicted felon with a $1.1 billion civil judgment — the single largest verdict tied to child assault ever recorded in the United States.
The defendant, Charles Edwin Brooks Jr., was already serving a 40-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in August 2023 to first-degree felony injury to a child.
Behind bars, he now faces a financial reckoning that dwarfs any comparable award in American legal history.
Brooks is the great-grandson of Percy Turner, one of the original investors in Humble Oil — the company that eventually became ExxonMobil.
Despite his family’s storied wealth, Brooks had no job of his own, drawing instead from a trust fund.
The jury in Dallas County’s 134th District Court found Brooks owed $291 million in compensatory damages to the child, Blake Sampson, along with $810 million in punitive damages split among Blake and his parents, Madison Ball and Stephen Sampson.
The compensatory breakdown included $65 million for future medical expenses, $50 million for future mental anguish, $50 million for future loss of enjoyment of life, and $30 million for future physical pain and suffering, among other categories.
The night everything changed came on April 22, 2021.
Brooks, who was married to Ball at the time, was watching her then 2-year-old son while she worked. He called her to report the toddler was unresponsive.
KRLD reported that Brooks had told Ball he needed to visit his grandfather in a Dallas hospital and took the child with him — but investigators determined he never went to any hospital.
He offered shifting explanations for the child’s condition — at various points claiming the toddler had tumbled off a kitchen table, fallen down a staircase, or been injured in a car accident.
Ball watched her son over a video call, barely breathing.
When she pushed Brooks to call for emergency help, he refused. Instead, he told her the child had already been placed in an ice bath and would simply “sleep it off.”
When Ball said she was calling an ambulance, Brooks threatened to “snap her neck” and kill her if she called for help. She made the call anyway.
Paramedics arrived to find Blake with a severe brain bleed, widespread bruising and adult bite marks on his legs.
He was rushed to Medical City Dallas Hospital and placed in a medically induced coma on a ventilator with a drain in his brain.
Blake’s injuries included damage to his medulla, cortex and brain stem, along with chronic respiratory failure, a seizure disorder and hemorrhaging in both retinas.
He now requires 24-hour medical care, a tracheostomy tube and a breathing machine. He is confined to a wheelchair and cannot walk. He is seven years old.
After his initial arrest, Brooks bonded out of jail.
The Texas Lawbook said he later cut off his ankle monitor and ran. Authorities tracked him to a sports bar in South Texas, where he was taken back into custody.
“We claim to value children in our society. This Texas jury stepped up and showed that,” attorney Tony Buzbee said following the verdict.
“I hope that through this verdict this precious child gets all the care he will need and hopefully make his life as good as it can be made under the circumstances.”
CBS News noted that Buzbee also issued a pointed warning: “Children are a precious gift from God our Father. Don’t mess with Texas children. Period.”
