LawyersUSA

A Texas jury awarded $8 million to four boys who alleged they were the victims of sexual abuse for a two year period beginning in 2004.

Jason Newsom had pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child and one count of sexual abuse of a child in January 2007. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The overriding question at the civil trial concerned how much responsibility for the assaults fell on Jason's father, Harold "Hal" Newsom.

Plaintiffs' attorney Joe Stephens and his co-counsel Richard Howell argued that the elder Newsom repeatedly put the four children in harm's way by allowing Jason to be a central figure in various businesses which attract young children, including a petting zoo, a wildlife reserve and a hunting and airboat fishing business.

Although Jason was in his 30s when the attacks took place, Stephens argued that because Hal Newsom knew about his son's past problems with children, he was responsible for warning parents of the children who patronized his businesses.

"One of the parents [of the boys] said it best when he was on the stand," said Stephens. "All [Hal Newsom] had to do was come to him and say it's not a good idea for his son to be around Jason, and he would have been out of there in a heartbeat."

Stephens said the plaintiffs' case against Hal Newsom was based on showing how intimately he was aware of his son's behavior around children. He also had to show that Jason Newsom deliberately misled the parents of the victims about his own sordid past.

The defense, which has vowed to appeal, claimed there was no direct business connection between the father and son that would make Hal Newsom responsible for putting the four abuse victims in harm's way. Nor was there any state law making parents responsible for crimes committed by an adult child.

"All of the crimes were committed on Jason's property, not his father's," said defense attorney Judy Mingledorff. "And there was no link showing Jason used his father's business to attract these children. He knew some of their parents from high school or from the baseball park."

A history of abuse

According to Stephens, Jason Newsom had been accused of abusing children since he was 17 years old. According to testimony at trial, within six months of moving in with his father and new stepmother Jason abused and raped his 5- and 10-year-old stepbrothers. He received six months of counseling to stay out of jail.

Jason's stepmother, Marcia Smiley, testified that she began following him around and caught him on several occasions at local carnivals trying to lure children.

Despite being what plaintiffs' attorneys called a "practicing pedophile," Jason married in 1993 and had two children.

Jason's wife Colleen soon became suspicious of her husband's behavior as well. At one point she tape-recorded her husband's interactions with a neighborhood's child in their home. Fearing Jason would assault her own two children, Colleen divorced Jason in 2002.

During the custody proceedings, Hal testified about his son's "appetite for children," according to Stephens.

In 2004, Hal used Jason to promote his new boat-fishing and exotic hunting supplies business. He put Jason on the brochures with children and had his son attend trade shows geared towards children. The trade shows featured Jason with an array of animals, such as alligators and boa constrictors, which he would use to attract and instruct the children.

Between 2004 and 2006 Jason began regularly sexually abusing the four plaintiffs, three of whom were featured with him in the brochure and while the fourth took the pictures. The three in the brochure were 9 years old at the time, while the fourth by was 14.

Making the connection

The defense argued that because the plaintiffs could not prove Jason and his father had a business relationship, Hal's relationship with Jason was strictly father-son. Since Jason was an adult, Hal had no legal duty to warn the parents, the defense contended.

But Stephens argued the businesses enabled Jason to attract children and Hal was responsible because he knew of his son's past problems.

A computer forensics team found two key e-mails on Hal's computer that referred to the assaults. In the first, sent in 2004, Jason wrote his father: "In spite of what you may think, I am not harming these children." In a second e-mail, sent in October 2006, Hal wrote to his son about the abuse allegations, saying: "You're the one who created this hornet's nest. I warned you over and over again."

The most damning testimony against the senior Newsom came from the eldest of the four victims, who alleged that over the course of two years Jason took him on several boating trips, with Hal coming along about half the time.

During the rides back, Jason would take the boy in his pickup and his father would drive behind them. Jason repeatedly pulled over to the side of the road and abused the child, while Hal would continue on his way.

When Hal was asked about this on the stand, he responded that he believed the 14-year-old consented to it.

"That's the kind of man the jury got to see," said Stephens.

Son's admission not enough

The defense argued that Hal Newsom could not be held liable for failing to warn the parents because Jason himself told the victim's parents about the abuse accusations against him.

"Ironically, the perpetrator himself told families he had been accused of sexual assault, but he told them it wasn't true and it was a lie being told by his ex-wife," said Mingledorff.

But the defense attorney said she spoke with jurors after the trial, and they felt that if Hal had done something to warn the families, those warnings would have been considered more serious.

Mingledorff argued a father has no duty to warn others of the past troubles of a grown man who had committed alleged offenses years earlier. Texas state law says parents are not responsible for the criminal actions of an adult child, she argued.

But Stephens saw it differently.

"Under the Texas criminal statute, [Hal Newsom] created substantial risk he was aware of when he put the children in harm's way," he said.

The verdict

After an eight-day trial, jurors awarded the four children $8 million and held Hal Newsom responsible for $1.6 million, or 20 percent of the total verdict.

According to Stephens, the lone holdout in the 11-1 verdict was an insurance adjuster who was "so mad he couldn't see straight, because he wanted to give [the plaintiffs] even more money."

The entire verdict was compensatory damages for physical and mental harm. There were no punitive damages. Stephens said the plaintiff attorneys opted not to ask for punitive damages because they did not believe the Texas Appellate Court would uphold them.

Stephens added he is not satisfied with the verdict.

"Eight million [dollars] in compensatory [damages] is not even a drop in the hat for the type of harm these boys had to suffer and are going to suffer," he said.

Plaintiffs' attorneys: Joe Stephens of the Stephens Law Firm in Houston; Richard Howell of Buckley, White, Castaneda & Howell in Houston.

Defense attorneys: Judy P. Mingledorff of the Mingledorff Law Firm in Houston; Dominick Derose of Dominick D. Derose Law Offices in Houston.

The case: B.B. v. Newsom; June 25, 2008; Montgomery County Court at Law in Conroe, Texas; Judge Mary Ann Turner.

Questions or comments can be directed to the writer at: justin.rebello@lawyersusaonline.com.