Parkland man called death of girlfriend’s toddler an accident. Judge called it ‘torture’

A Parkland man who pleaded guilty to manslaughter and other felonies for killing a 2-year-old girl he was a caretaker to and hurting her two brothers told the judge who sentenced him Thursday that the girl’s death was an accident.

Pierce County Superior Court Judge Angelica Williams had a different word for what Sarai Brooks and her siblings endured at the hands of Augustino Seu Maile between January 2021 and March 11, 2022, when a social worker found Sarai dead in an apartment hallway: torture.

“This is 15 months of what amounts to torture to these kids,” Williams said before sentencing Maile to a little more than 16 years in prison.

The judge said by Maile’s own admission in his guilty plea statement he had fractured a bone in a boy’s inner thigh, bit another boy to the point of leaving lasting marks, bit Sarai several times and ultimately killed her.

“If I could give you more time, I would,” Williams said.

Prosecutors and the defendant’s attorney agreed to recommend a sentence just beyond the middle of the standard sentencing range for defendants prosecuted in similar cases, 146 to 194 months in prison. The recommendation was 14 months shorter than was Williams imposed, 194 months.

Williams told Maile he was lucky that she couldn’t hand him a punishment greater than the standard range. She said he had “obviously” been well-represented by his attorney, Carrie Fulton-Brown. Prosecutors originally charged Maile with homicide by abuse and two counts of second-degree murder, but the murder charges were dismissed and the homicide by abuse charge was reduced to manslaughter as part of plea negotiations, according to court records.

Maile also pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree assault of a child for assaults on Sarai’s brothers.

At Thursday’s sentencing hearing, family members were present in support of Maile, and family members were there in support of Sarai, according to Maile’s defense attorney. Tensions simmered throughout the hearing, with Williams giving at least one admonishment to the courtroom gallery for an interruption. Things boiled over in the hallway after court adjourned, with people from both sides shouting at one another and getting in each other’s faces before Sheriff’s Department deputies separated them.

Both Maile, 32, and Sarai’s mother, Jharmaine Baker, 24, were charged in the girl’s death in March 2022 and jailed with multi-million dollar bail amounts . Sarai and her two brothers had been taken by Child Protective Services in April 2021, records state, after Auburn police suspected Baker of physically abusing her children. They were returned to the couple three months before Sarai’s death.

An autopsy found bruises on the girl’s face, arms, thigh, hands, buttocks and feet, according to the probable cause document. The Pierce County medical examiner found bruising on her head and behind her ears, abrasions on her cheek and lacerations inside her mouth and on her lip. She also had a possible hemorrhage on her spinal cord.

The toddler’s death was ruled a homicide, and her cause of death was determined to blunt head trauma.

After Baker’s children were removed from her home, she submitted a letter to law enforcement that stated it was Maile who hurt her children and that she allowed him to beat them “so she wouldn’t get beaten,” prosecutors wrote in charging papers.

A protection order issued in 2021 barred Maile from being close to Baker’s children, according to court records, but he was in the apartment with Baker when authorities found Sarai dead. He reportedly gave deputies a fake name, and Baker referred to him as her cousin rather than her boyfriend.

Baker pleaded guilty in June last year to first-degree criminal mistreatment and two counts of second-degree assault of a child. Records show a charge of second-degree murder was dismissed as part of plea negotiations. She was sentenced June 22, 2023 to six years in prison.

At Maile’s sentencing hearing Thursday morning, deputy prosecuting attorney Kelly Montgomery said the three children Maile harmed in this case lived a “miserable existence” for 15 months. She said once Maile came into their lives, they suffered beatings with belts, bites and blunt-force trauma.

“The mom of these children has already pled and has been sentenced, and she didn’t protect them,” Montgomery said. “There was really nobody there in this household to protect these little kids.”

Sarai’s grandmother, Danielle Benson, and the girl’s father, Jalen Brooks, also spoke before Maile’s sentence was imposed.

“She was a fierce little girl,” Benson said.

Sarai was one of six of Benson’s grandchildren, she said, and as the only girl, she had to be tough. But Sarai could be a “little diva,” her grandmother said. Her third birthday was just a month after her death, and Benson said Sarai had been asking what they were going to do. The plan was to go shopping with her grandmother, followed by pedicures and manicures.

Benson said she was looking forward to that day, but it was taken away from her, along with everything else she’d hoped to one day see Sarai accomplish. Benson said she’d never see the girl graduate or get married.

Benson held a photo of the young girl as she spoke, at times speaking through tears while she pleaded with Williams to impose the longest sentence possible. She said Maile would one day get out and have a life again, but he took away Sarai’s chance at life.

The girl’s father then approached the judge’s bench to speak. He said he didn’t have much to say.

“She was 2 years old,” the father said. “I just don’t know what makes a person, a grown man at that, beat a 2 year old. Still trying to figure that out.”

Jalen Brooks stood before the judge in silence for nearly a minute, then said he had nothing else to say and returned to the courtroom gallery.

Maile’s defense attorney, Fulton-Brown, of Vindicate Criminal Law Group, a firm with offices in Tacoma, Seattle, Bellevue and Everett, spoke next. She said this had been a hard case for everyone involved.

Fulton-Brown said her client had no similar criminal history, and he had already served 767 days in custody, with a substantial amount of time still to be served in the Department of Corrections. She added that Maile had taken responsibility in the case by making a factual plea.

One of Maile’s aunts, who attended the hearing with about nine other relatives, spoke in support of the defendant. The aunt said she was sorry for the loss of Sarai because they had all played a part in her life.

The aunt said they were Samoan by nationality, and they had raised Maile as a family. She said this was not Maile’s character, so they didn’t know what happened in this situation.

Maile was someone who works hard and comes home, she said. The aunt asked the judge to understand that Maile was not the only one at fault. She said there were “so many” adults involved, as well as “organizations” and people that are not taking accountability.

When it was Maile’s turn to speak, he stood and pulled a note from the breast pocket of his jail uniform.

“I want to apologize and give my deepest condolences to the families affected in this accident,” Maile said.

The defendant said he never intended or expected anything like this to happen. He said he had been surrounded by family his entire life, and he always tried to work hard and take care of his kids and family. Maile said he felt that the “odds or the evidence” had been stacked against him, but he accepted a deal and planned to use every opportunity he is given to show he’s not the person he’s been painted as.

Before Williams imposed Maile’s sentence, she said neither Baker nor any organization made him kill Sarai.

“Those are decisions that you made to these three helpless children, ultimately resulting in Sarai’s death,” Williams said. “That’s not an accident.”