12:48 AM CDT on Monday, July 11, 2005
James E. Brown personifies the latest craze in the world of youth sports
– the private skills coach. For $100 an hour, Brown tutors boys and
girls as young as 11 in the intricacies of basketball.
Brown, 43, is credited with helping improve the fortunes of the Lake
Highlands and Allen high school girls basketball programs. His list of
individual clients includes top talent from the Dallas area.
Brown's motivational skills have come to the attention of local as well
as federally funded anti-crime programs that have hired him in hopes he
could use basketball as a tool to reach "at-risk" kids.
But when Brown's annual Maximum Performance summer camp was scheduled to
open at the McKinney Salvation Army gym last month, he was nowhere to be
found.
While anxious parents telephoned each other in hopes of solving the
mystery, James E. Brown sat locked away in Dallas County Jail.
A 2 ½-year-old indictment on a charge of aggravated sexual assault of a
girl has put him on the sidelines, at least temporarily. His $50,000
bond was revoked soon after The Dallas Morning News began making
inquiries in May.
A Dallas County grand jury had indicted Brown in 2003 after reviewing
the allegations of a female relative, who says he sexually assaulted her
in 1995 when she was 13.
Although Brown had previously spoken to The News about his
coaching, he declined an interview request while in jail. His lawyer,
Russell Wilson, said his client "has committed no crime" and "is
anxiously awaiting his day in court." Brown has not been accused of any
impropriety with his students.
A letter in Brown's court file describes his accuser as a troubled young
woman whose charges stemmed from a family dispute. Public records
indicate that the accuser received probation and a fine for a
misdemeanor offense in 2004. She could not be reached for comment.
The News does not identify accusers in sexual assault cases without
their consent.
Brown's day in court could come Monday, when trial is set in Dallas
County Criminal Court.
Brown is in jail because he missed two key court dates, one in November,
one in April. Either time, at the request of the district attorney's
office, he could have been ordered to stop coaching and stay away from
minors as a condition of bond. The district attorney's office was forced
to wait for him to appear because it lacks the funds to be proactive in
such circumstances, said assistant district attorney Patricia Hogue,
chief of the child abuse division.
When Brown showed up at the Frank Crowley Courts Building on May 23,
State District Judge Manny Alvarez, citing the missed appearances, ruled
Brown's bond insufficient. Judge Alvarez then had Brown escorted next
door to a cell inside the Lew Sterrett Justice Center. At a hearing two
days later, Alvarez refused to set new bond.
"If you are charged with aggravated sexual assault with a child and
you're coaching children, that is a problem," Alvarez told Brown, whose
trademark white shirt was replaced by a white Dallas County jail
jumpsuit.
Word of Brown's whereabouts has trickled out, partly because of
inquiries into his past made by The News.
"No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No!" Allen High School girls basketball
coach Amy Pool wailed into the telephone. "I am totally floored."
It is a reaction that resonated throughout the basketball community.
Deep breaths and long pauses punctuate responses.
"Are you sure we're talking about the same James Brown?" asked Ann
Guerin, whose 6-1 daughter Taja, a highly sought college prospect at
Carrollton Christian Academy, is one of Brown's prized students. "My
James Brown is an ordained minister."
Brown said his ordination was bestowed via an Internet correspondence
course.
Several parents have banded together to keep Brown's summer camp running
in his absence. Fees are being funneled to help support his wife and son.
"We've been in his program since sixth grade," said supporter Jo
Cameron, whose daughter Randi was a star player at Allen High and is
scheduled to attend Long Beach State on a basketball scholarship. "I
call him 'Coach' because he is the true description of the word."
Prosecutors, however, paint Brown as a man who avoided court dates
because he knew his business was at risk.
"He knew we wanted to keep him away from children," said Hogue, the
assistant district attorney. "But he wanted to continue to make $100 an
hour."
Brown sat for a two-hour interview with The News in early May
just before his bond was revoked. He had agreed to be the focal point of
a story on highly paid, successful youth coaches.
He never hinted he had legal problems. He was proud to have built
business largely through word of mouth. Brown did volunteer information
about his work with anti-crime programs. He believed a newspaper article
would attract new clients. A routine criminal background check after
that get-acquainted interview uncovered Brown's indictment.
The Greater Dallas Crime Commission and the U.S. Attorney's Office for
the Northern District of Texas had awarded grants to his tax-exempt
foundation.
"My God, this is real bad," said Hank Lawson, executive director of the
Justice Department's local Weed and Seed program. "We should have done a
background check. He's been around our kids ... all of our kids.
"No one knew."
There is a simple reason the district attorney's office didn't ask from
the start that Brown be compelled to stay away from minors. No one had
focused on Brown's file, Hogue said. It wasn't until October 2004 – 21
months after the indictment – that the Dallas County district attorney's
office realized Brown was working with children.
The coordinator in Judge Alvarez's office spotted the defendant's
profession as it was clearly written in his file. Helen Wilhelm said she
felt queasy as she picked up her phone to sound an alarm. Almost
immediately, the district attorney's office asked Alvarez that a
prohibition against contact with minors be added to Brown's condition of
bond.
Brown was never notified of the added stipulation.
He skipped an April date at the Crowley Courts Building, Brown said at a
bond hearing, because he was at Pearl C. Anderson Middle School, working
on a project for Weed and Seed.
"This didn't fall through a crack in the system," said Hogue, chief of
the child abuse division. "The entire system is cracked."
Her understaffed department, Hogue said, has no time to review files of
bonded defendants.
And so, James Earl Brown, married and the father of one son, was able to
go about building his business and tending to his burgeoning foundation.
According to Maximum Performance Basketball School Inc., the foundation
took in $68,558 in 2002, the last year for which information is
available. Brown and his wife, Joyce, are the foundation's only listed
salaried employees.
"James is a wonderful person, but he should have disclosed" the
indictment, said Guerin, whose daughter has worked with Brown for three
years. "He should have allowed parents to determine if they wanted to
have their children continue to work with him."
Wilson, the defense attorney, said there was good reason Brown kept the
information to himself. "That would have put a man convicted of nothing
straight out of business," he said.
Instead, Brown's business has flourished since the indictment.
Days before Brown went to jail, the Greater Dallas Crime Commission
received a new request for money for his foundation.
"He always asks for lots of money," said Millie Deanda, the commission's
executive director. "And we've been receptive," because Brown's track
record was good, she said.
Meanwhile, demand for Brown's coaching expertise continued to explode.
He increased his fee for private lessons. What cost $30 in 1998
increased first to $50 and finally to $100 by 2003.
The increase was fueled, Brown reasoned, by his success working with the
Lake Highlands High girls team, which won its first district
championship in 2003.
Pool, the Allen coach, asked Lake Highlands coach Tina Walker what might
have contributed to her team's new success. Walker told her the team had
worked with Brown.
Pool invited Brown to work with her team. Pool's team won district this
year.
"The rules say we can't help our kids certain times of the year," Pool
said. "Coaches like James step in and teach the basics. He does it
better than anyone I know."
Coaching sessions that once had been primarily with boys began tilting
toward girls.
In addition to one-on-one lessons, Brown offered group sessions ranging
for up to $220 a month per player. Some youth league coaches brought
their entire rosters.
Brown insisted on limiting group sessions to 12 students. "A biblical
concept," he called it. "Like Jesus and the 12 disciples."
Some parents hoped Brown would help their children earn a place on the
junior high or high school team. Others set their sights higher. They
viewed Brown as means to a college scholarship.
"Parents look at my program as an investment," Brown said in early May
as he pushed Maximum Performance literature across a table in an Allen
restaurant not far from his home. "They are willing to invest in me –
$3,000 to $6,000 over a period of years – because my track record shows
that can mean a $30,000-a-year scholarship."
Cameron, the single mother whose daughter earned a scholarship to Long
Beach State, said the more than $6,000 she paid Brown over the years was
worth it.
"He taught Randi more than basketball; he taught her how to be a
champion," Cameron said after hearing of the charge. "He is a man of
high integrity and morals, a Christian, and that comes out every day."
An advertised clinic Brown conducted at the Salvation Army in February
attracted more than 50 prospective students. Several signed up for the
$100 lessons.
Brown beamed as he recounted how he built such a loyal following despite
not having a famous basketball pedigree.
"I am not a former college star or a former NBA player," he said. "I
built this by word of mouth. Hard work and my system separate me from
the competition."
Brown played basketball at Spruce High School. From there, it was on to
Navarro College, Eastfield College and finally Hardin-Simmons University
for one nondescript season.
Brown said he played in Great Britain for several years before returning
to Navarro and Eastfield as an assistant coach.
Navarro coach Lewis Orr and Eastfield coach Bob Flickner fondly remember
Brown.
"A class act and a class kid," Orr said. "A guy with a lot of high
energy who can teach kids as good or better than anyone. I'm not
surprised parents find him."
Back at Eastfield, Brown began working at basketball camps and offering
personal coaching. He worked between 1994 and 2000 as an elementary
school community liaison in the Richardson Independent School District.
It was while he was at RISD's Northlake Elementary School that Brown met
former Dallas City Council member Donna Halstead and became active in
her "Better Kids, Better Dallas" program.
"The kids adored him," recalled Halstead, now president of the Dallas
Citizens Council. "I adored him. Everyone did."
That opened doors.
Dallas Deputy Police Chief Floyd Simpson said he received a
recommendation from Halstead and brought in Brown to work on a midnight
basketball program in the tough southeast police district.
"We had the highest teen pregnancy rate in the area and we were infested
with gangs," Simpson said. "And this guy was able to use basketball as a
hook for life training. He was incredible. I know a few kids going down
the wrong path who he steered in the right direction. This was a special
guy."
And then Brown, who lived in Mesquite at the time, stopped coming around.
"I always thought it was because he took his program to a more upscale
zip code," Simpson said.
On Aug. 5, 2002, Brown's wife, Joyce, and a relative walked into the
Mesquite Police Department. With Joyce Brown by her side, the young
woman told police that Brown had sexually assaulted her in 1995 when she
was a minor.
On Jan. 27, 2003, a Dallas County grand jury indicted Brown.
On Feb. 12, 2003, the original bond was set at $25,000.
For a victim who was assaulted as a minor to wait several years before
going to police is not unusual, said Wanda Davenport, senior crisis
counselor for Dallas County's Victim Intervention Program.
It is referred to as "delayed outcry."
"Most times children don't tell," Davenport said. "In about 90 percent
of the cases, they don't immediately come forward. It's only when they
grow up ... that they feel empowered to confront their demons."
The law dictates that the statute of limitations is 10 years after the
minor turns 18.
"Outcry or out-lie?" asked defense attorney Wilson.
Wilson is Brown's fifth attorney on this case. Brown, unhappy with their
work, parted ways with the first four.
"It seems you hire and fire attorneys right before trial," Alvarez told
Brown at the bond hearing in May. "It's a pattern."
A fired attorney often means a delayed trial date. Brown has had three
trial dates postponed.
Brown's public court file contains documents and letters supporting his
cause that are not stamped by the court clerk. Hogue, the assistant
district attorney, believes Brown inserted the documents himself.
"Trying to manipulate," Hogue said.
"Crying out for help," said Wilson, the defense attorney.
One such document, a letter from the Texas Department of Protective and
Regulatory Services, appears to exonerate Brown "for abuse or neglect of
one or more children in the above named case." The letter, however, is
not about the accuser, said department spokesperson Marrisa Gonzalez.
Among the officially stamped documents is a March 30 letter from Brown's
last attorney, Andrea Martin, to the court. In it, she says Brown
believes "he alone can represent himself the best."
An earlier letter from Brown to Martin alleges a conspiracy to put him
in jail.
"You, [prosecutor Lara Peirce] and Judge Alvarez will be investigated by
a state bar investigator, my civil attorney and the FBI," Brown wrote.
"They are already looking into attorney misconduct, police corruption
and other possible corrupt activity involving this case."
Another document is a handwritten letter from Brown's wife, dated Jan.
9, 2003, that proclaims her husband's innocence. She declined to be
interviewed for this story.
Joyce Brown wrote that she has been to church counseling and no longer
believed her husband "sexually molested" the relative.
"The things I said [in her statement to police] make him look like a bad
person," Joyce Brown wrote. "My husband['s] reputation in the community
speaks for itself."
E-mail bhorn@dallasnews.com
