On Thursday, December 5th, a Cass County jury convicted 33-year-old Kennie Lewis Cook, Jr., of Atlanta, Texas, for three counts of Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child.
The jury assessed punishment on each charge at forty years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice – Institutional Division, along with a $1,000 fine. Fifth District Judge Bill Miller ordered that two of the sentences would run concurrently. He then ordered that the third sentence would run consecutively to those sentences, not concurrently, making this an eighty year sentence.
Because of the nature of the charge, Cook will not be eligible for parole until he has served a minimum of one-half of his sentence.
Assistant District Attorney Nicholas Ross presented testimony from the victim, eight years of age, who testified that Cook would come over to his great-grandmother’s house after church to eat. While there, Cook, who was a music minister for the church the victim attended, performed various sex acts on the victim and forced the victim to perform a sex act on Cook. Testimony from a forensic interviewer with the Texarkana Children’s Advocacy Center and the victim’s counselor was also pivotal in securing a conviction.
