BURLINGTON, Vt. — A Vermont man whose 12-year-old niece was found dead near his home carefully orchestrated events and e-mails to make it appear she had gone to see someone she met online, prosecutors said Thursday as they charged him with kidnapping.
Michael Jacques, 42, could face the death penalty under federal law if convicted in the disappearance of Brooke Bennett. An autopsy has not confirmed whether the girl was killed.
Citing statements from another girl, prosecutors claim in an affidavit that Jacques tricked Brooke into thinking she was going to a party and instead took her to his Randolph home to initiate her into a child-sex ring on June 25, the day she disappeared.
The girl’s body was found Wednesday in a shallow grave near Jacques’ house.
But no new evidence of a wider child-sex ring has been found, beyond the claims of the 14-year-old that were released Wednesday in another affidavit unsealed in U.S. District Court in Burlington, officials said.
“There’s nothing from this investigation that’s been turned up, nor otherwise are federal and state authorities aware of, any ongoing efforts to recruit young girls or boys here in Vermont to have sex with adults,” Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell said Thursday.
Authorities said they still weren’t sure whether there was a sex ring or whether there was a ruse Jacques might have used to intimidate the girls.
Michael Desautels, the federal public defender representing Jacques, didn’t return calls Thursday.
Authorities say Jacques faked and altered postings to Brooke’s MySpace pages in an effort to convince investigators she planned to run off with someone she met online.
Jacques is charged under a federal law that provides for the death penalty in a kidnapping resulting in a child’s death. In 1993, he was sentenced to six to 20 years in prison after being convicted of kidnapping and raping an 18-year-old woman he supervised at a restaurant, court records show. He successfully completed the state’s sex-offender treatment program in 2000 and was released from probation in 2006.
The FBI affidavits support the charges against Jacques and against Bennett’s former stepfather, Raymond Gagnon, who is charged with obstructing justice.
Allegations in the affidavits include a claim by a 14-year- old that, at age 9, she was initiated into a “program for sex” called “Breckenridge” and that a male relative was to be her trainer. The girl told police she was told she’d be killed if she didn’t cooperate.
