Defendants Attempt Ban on Pink Attire for Madison Brooks Family

Three men accused of raping and dumping LSU cheerleader Madison Brooks are making frantic legal moves ahead of next week's trial, including a bizarre attempt to ban her grieving family from wearing pink. Casen Carver, 22, Desmond Carter, 21, and Kaivon Washington, also 21, face rape charges stemming from the January 2023 horror attack that left 19-year-old Madison slumped on a busy highway in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Carter's trial starts Monday. Carver will stand before a jury on November 30. Tragically, Madison was hit by an Uber driver who could not see her in the pitch darkness and died from her injuries later that day. Now, with Carter's case looming, new tactics have emerged to keep defendants out of court.

Carter's legal team argued that family members dressing in pink constituted a threat to the jury and violated his right to a fair trial. Prosecutor Sonya Cardia-Porter rejected this claim immediately. She called the move an absurd exaggeration and unpersuasive, noting Madison's relatives are silent, passive spectators.

Judge Gail Ray agreed with the prosecutor last week. The family may wear pink but cannot display photographs of the 19-year-old on their clothing. This is just one of many legal stunts used by the defense as trial nears. They filed a motion to dismiss Carter's first-degree rape charge entirely, claiming he would face double jeopardy if tried for both counts.

Carver's trial was pushed back to November after repeated clashes with Judge Ray regarding her son Nelson Taylor. The 46-year-old judge's son was convicted in 1997 of multiple rapes and burglaries involving teenage girls. Carver allegedly sent texts saying she knows how to help them because he discovered she has a convicted rapist son.

Carver also tried suing Madison's mother, Ashley Baustert, for defamation over an interview given to Nancy Grace in 2024. Washington's uncle Everett Lee, 32, joined the lawsuit even though his rape charges were dismissed without prejudice by a Louisiana Grand Jury. Both defendants claimed Baustert defamed them by implying they are rapists during a July 2023 Fox Nation special called Left For Dead: The Case of Madison Brooks.

Baustert spoke openly about the difficulty it has caused her family. She stated that victim blaming is predictable and insisted this was not consensual. Her words have set the stage for a trial that many feel must proceed quickly and fairly.

It is deeply painful to hear these words again and again. A short twenty-nine second video clip from the night of her death shows Madison appearing to tell Desmond Carter, who was seventeen at the time, to get out of the car so she could ride home in an Uber on her own. Other footage released by authorities depicts the student running after a group of men on the very night she died. The case was later thrown out by New Orleans judge Carl J Barbier. Madison's family is now planning to attend the trials of Carter, Carver, and Washington, though a trial date has not yet been set. In an interview with the Daily Mail last week, Baustert stated she believed it was her duty to be in court for these legal proceedings. She said her immediate family plan to attend every single day of the trial because they know it will be hard, especially since she has two other children at home. Separating those heavy feelings and then coming home to be a mom is going to be a serious challenge. Honestly, she does not know how she prepares for such a difficult task. She plans to take it moment by moment and day by day. If she needs to leave the courtroom, she will quietly excuse herself. But she says she is going to try her best to be there for her daughter. Madison died in January 2023 after meeting the four men at Reggie's Bar, a popular student hangout that has since been shut down. Born and raised in Louisiana, this sassy and adventurous cheerleader intended to major in communications. Brooks's mother Ashley Baustert will come face to face with one of the three men accused of attacking her daughter on August 17. The men had offered to give Madison a lift home after she lost her phone and friends, with surveillance footage showing the quintet leaving the bar where the LSU student appears visibly drunk. Troubling video filmed by Carver and included in the prosecution case shows the now twenty-two-year-old laughing and telling the camera that these guys are crazy before adding they were fixing to rape her. Prosecutors claim Madison's muffled voice can be heard above blaring music yelling Get off. And, they say, the men then dropped her off on Burbank Drive, alone in the dark at 3am, where she was hit by an Uber that killed her.