Columbus jury reaches mixed verdict in trial of alleged serial rapist. Here’s what happened.
A Columbus jury has found an alleged serial rapist not guilty on most of the 11 felony charges he faced in a week-long trial, indicating jurors didn’t believe four of the five women who testified against him.
After 11 hours’ deliberation over two days, the jury of eight women and four men convicted Jamarquis Javier Hooks only on felony rape and aggravated assault charges stemming from one incident, and on five lesser misdemeanor charges related to others.
Judge Ben Land set Hooks’ sentencing for 2 p.m. March 6, when Hooks faces a sentence range of one to 20 years for aggravated assault, 25 years to life for rape, and a maximum of one year each for the misdemeanors, two counts of simple assault and three of simple battery.
Hooks, 28, went to trial last week on four counts of rape, four of aggravated assault, and one each of aggravated sodomy and attempted rape. So the outcome was disappointing for prosecutor Veronica Hansis, and a mixed blessing to Hooks’ defense team, law partners William Kendrick and Mark Shelnutt.
Hooks smiled and hugged his attorneys after Land read the verdict.
Hooks’ accusations were notable not only for the number of women testifying against him, but for his pattern of conduct as outlined by the prosecution: He used social media to connect with the women before taking them to the same secluded spot in a Columbus trailer park, where he typically put them in a choke hold before sexually assaulting them.
The youngest to testify against Hooks was 16 in 2018, when Hooks, who was 26, was alleged to have raped her and three others, and to have tried to rape a fifth woman who got away.
In her closing argument Monday, Hansis told jurors Hooks communicated with the women on a dating app called Tagged or on Facebook, and arranged a meeting where he showed up in his grandmother’s Chevy Malibu.
Once he got them in the car, he drove to the Pine Meadow Estates trailer park at 3434 St. Marys Road. “That is his hunting ground,” Hansis said.
He parked between two storage buildings amid abandoned trailers, and demanded sex. If the women did not comply, he attacked them, clamping their necks in the crook of his arm and squeezing to cut their breath off, Hansis said.
“He becomes explosively violent,” she said.
Then he behaved as if he’d done nothing wrong, she said: The women reported that Hooks went from relaxed and amiable to abruptly aggressive, and after assaulting them, resumed his former demeanor.
Hooks’ defense team argued prosecutors did not prove each element of the allegations, and were pushing for a conviction based on the number of victims, not the evidence.
Kendrick called it “prosecution by petition rather than proof,” telling jurors: “The state has not met its burden on any of these counts.”
The allegations
Here is the prosecution’s account of the five cases, in the order they were alleged to have occurred:
▪ On March 9, 2018, a 22-year-old woman who knew Hooks through mutual friends agreed to meet with him after they exchanged Facebook messages. Hooks around 11:15 a.m. drove her to the trailer park, where he put her in a choke hold while trying to pull her pants down, she said. She complied with his demands, but escaped when he stopped to reposition himself. “This guy just tried to rape me,” she told 911. “We were supposed to just be hanging out, and he went berserk.” The responding officer told her he had no evidence other than her word against Hooks’, and she then signed a waiver releasing police from any liability related to her choosing not to prosecute.
Hooks in this case was charged with attempted rape and aggravated assault. The jury convicted him instead on the lesser misdemeanor offenses of two counts each of simple assault and simple battery.
▪ Around July 8, 2018, Hooks on the Tagged dating app arranged to meet a 23-year-old woman, to hang out in front of her home and smoke marijuana. Hooks told her he needed cigars to make a “blunt,” a cigar with marijuana packed into it. They left to go to a store, but Hooks passed three stores on the way to the trailer park, where he took her wallet, keys and phone, and asked whether anyone would notice she’s missing, she said. He pulled her out of the car, and when she reached for her phone, he told her he’d break her arm if she tried again, she said. He dragged her into the back seat and raped her, though she complained of excruciating pain from kidney stones, she said. She did not report the assault until September, when she saw a news report on Hooks’ arrest.
Charged with rape in this case, Hooks was found not guilty.
▪ Around Aug. 10, 2018, Hooks via Facebook arranged a rendezvous with a 16-year-old girl he had met through mutual friends two months earlier. He had been giving her rides and buying her gifts. He drove her to the trailer park, where they got out of the car and he demanded sex, in return for his favors, prosecutors said. When she tried to walk away, he put her in a choke hold, pulled her into the back seat and raped her, she testified. She ran away afterward, but did not report the assault until Aug. 29.
The jury found Hooks not guilty of rape and aggravated assault in this case.
▪ On Aug. 18, 2018, Hooks used the Tagged app to arrange a date with a woman who lived on Fort Benning. Surveillance video showed him passing through the post gate in the Malibu about 6:30 p.m. They went to his grandmother’s home and smoked marijuana outside before he drove to the trailer park. He turned the radio up, put her in the choke hold and raped her. She tried to call 911, but he kept batting her phone away. Unintelligible because of her screams, her call was recorded at 10:26 p.m. Hooks’ brakes failed afterward, and he had to stop in front of a home where the resident gave him brake fluid, and noticed the woman seemed nervous. The witness reported this to 911 at 11:04 p.m.
As Hooks drove the woman back to Fort Benning, she claimed she needed a visitor’s pass to go back on post, so they stopped at the visitor’s center. When Hooks followed her in, she said she had to use the restroom. After a worker there checked Hooks’ ID, the suspect left. “That man raped me,” she reported then. A DNA test later matched her rape-exam evidence to Hooks, Hansis said.
The jury found Hooks guilty of rape and aggravated assault in this case.
▪ On Aug. 24, 2018, Hooks on Facebook arranged to meet a 19-year-old woman who needed a ride from the Colony Inn, 4300 Victory Drive. Hooks drove her to the trailer park, where one of his car tires blew out going in. Parking in his usual spot, he put her in a choke hold, forced her to give him oral sex and raped her, she testified. Afterward, he got out of the car to get dressed, telling her he could not take her anywhere because of the blown tire. She walked to the park office, arriving at 11:27 a.m., and called her grandmother to pick her up. Surveillance video recorded Hooks’ driving by the office with the shredded tire still on the Malibu. Hansis said DNA tests matched Hooks to the woman’s rape-exam evidence.
In this case, the jury found Hooks not guilty of rape, aggravated sodomy and aggravated assault. Instead of rape, it convicted him on the lesser offense of simple battery.
Both the prosecutor and the defense attorneys declined comment after Wednesday’s verdict.
This story was originally published February 26, 2020 at 4:35 PM.