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Joseph Brooks' Assistant Pleads Guilty

By DNAinfo Staff on May 25, 2011 2:13pm  | Updated on May 25, 2011 3:27pm

Shawni Lucier, 43, covers her face before taking a plea deal in Manhattan Supreme Court, May 25, 2011.
Shawni Lucier, 43, covers her face before taking a plea deal in Manhattan Supreme Court, May 25, 2011.
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DNAinfo/Paul Lomax

By Shayna Jacobs

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — An assistant to disgraced songwriter Joseph Brooks pleaded guilty Wednesday to helping him round up vulnerable young women and lure them to his apartment to be sexually assaulted and raped.

Shawni Lucier, 43, pleaded guilty to felony and misdemeanor charges of criminal facilitation in Manhattan Supreme Court Wednesday, days after Brooks committed suicide inside his Upper East Side apartment.

In exchange for the plea, Lucier could get a reduced sentence of up to 6 months in jail and 5 years probation. Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Charles Solomon could also opt to sentence her to no time behind bars and strictly require probation. She could have faced between 5 - 15 years years in prison if convicted.

Disgraced composer Joseph Brooks leaving Manhattan Supreme Court on January 19, 2010.
Disgraced composer Joseph Brooks leaving Manhattan Supreme Court on January 19, 2010.
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DNAinfo/Josh Williams

Lucier is due back in court Aug. 9 to prepare for sentencing. Lucier, who is free on bail left the courtroom crying and declined to speak to reporters.

Brooks, 73, took his own life on Sunday inside the same apartment in which he allegedly raped and sexually abused approximately two dozen 18- to 22-year-old women he had recruited from around the country to travel to his home for purported "movie auditions."

Brooks, who was arrested on the charges in 2009, was nearing a trial date when he committed suicide by putting a plastic bag over his head, draping a towel around his neck and pumping it full of helium gas, the city's office of the medical examiner said.

Brooks' body was claimed by the Riverside Memorial Chapel on May 23, according to the medical examiner's office. A private service was held there although but the chapel would not say when it took place.

Brooks' case will be dropped once prosecutors file Brooks' death certificate, possibly by the end of the week, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors had fought to keep Brooks' estate from getting his $1.25 million in bail money back, saying that when Brooks committed suicide, he "did absent himself from the case."

But Solomon overruled the ADA and allowed the money to be returned.

"Mr. Brooks is deceased and the case is not going to go forward against him," Solomon said for the court record.

Brooks was the Oscar-winning writer of the 1970s Oscar-winning hit "You Light Up My Life."

Brooks' 24-year-old son, Nicholas, is currently being held at Rikers Island on charges he murdered his girlfriend, Sylvie Cachay, a 33-year-old swimsuit designer who as found dead in a SoHo House bathtub in December. It was not immediately clear whether he was allowed to attend the service.

Joseph Brooks was found dead of an apparent suicide Sunday inside his apartment inside 130 E. 63rd St.
Joseph Brooks was found dead of an apparent suicide Sunday inside his apartment inside 130 E. 63rd St.
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DNAinfo/Gabriela Resto-Montero

Jeffrey Hoffman, an attorney for both the elder and the younger Brooks, said he delivered the news about the suicide to the younger Brooks in jail.

Shawni Lucier, 43, covers her face before taking a plea deal in Manhattan Supreme Court, May 25, 2011.
Shawni Lucier, 43, covers her face before taking a plea deal in Manhattan Supreme Court, May 25, 2011.
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DNAinfo/Paul Lomax