A Milwaukee County judge on Thursday sentenced mass killer Darrell Brooks to an additional nine years in prison for a crime he committed days before the Waukesha Christmas parade tragedy .
Brooks, 42, pleaded no contest in May to intimidating a victim and second-degree recklessly endangering safety, both Class G felonies.
The charges stemmed from a Nov. 5, 2021, incident during which prosecutors say Brooks threatened, punched and drove over the leg of his then-girlfriend at a gas station in Milwaukee.
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Brooks was brought into the courtroom Thursday for sentencing in a wheelchair, bound by chain at the waist. Court officials said he was placed in the wheelchair as a court security measure, not because of an injury or illness.
After he was arrested in the November matter, Brooks placed multiple calls to the woman from jail promising to marry her and raise a family with her if she declined to cooperate with investigators, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Torbenson said.
Brooks also used his mother to relay similar messages to exert more pressure on the woman not to testify against him.
At some point, the tenor of calls became more ominous and threatening.
"He told her he had people on the street watching her," Torbenson said.
The witness declined to come to court Thursday to deliver a victim impact statement after seeing several recent political ads that referenced the Waukesha killings running on television, Torbenson said.
Brooks' sentencing Thursday may be a moot point.
A Waukesha County jury convicted him in 2022 of driving an SUV through a Christmas parade in Waukesha. He was sentenced to six life terms in the deaths of Tamara Durand, Wilhelm Hospel, Jane Kulich, Leanna Owen, Virginia Sorenson and Jackson Sparks. The victims ranged in age from 8 to 81.
More than 60 others were injured.
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Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Michelle A. Havas ordered the sentence to run consecutive to the sentence in the Waukesha parade case.
Brooks is appealing his conviction in the Waukesha killings. Torbenson pushed for significant prison time for Brooks in the intimidation matter as insurance in case that sentence is somehow reduced or thrown out.
Brooks acted as his own attorney during his 18-day trial in Waukesha County, and became a spectacle for his outbursts and tirades, many of them directed at Waukesha County Judge Jennifer Dorow.
Brooks appeared a polar opposite while in court Thursday; he was calm and quiet, and wept as Havas handed down her sentence. He took responsibility for his actions and expressed deep regret for them, and also lamented missing family milestones, including his daughter's recent high school graduation.
Brooks pleaded with Havas to not be influenced by the parade killings, and promoted the theory that he's grown as a person while he has been in custody the last nearly three years.
"I obviously can't change the past at this point. People will see me how they see me," he said. "But outside of my other matter, I just don't want to have the weight of that to be the narrative of this (incident)."
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Darrell Brooks sentenced for intimidating witness before Waukesha parade killings
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