Former Fort Worth theater director on trial in child sex assault case

Once an up-and-coming artistic director at one of the Texas’ oldest black theaters, Declois Beacham sat stoned-faced in a courtroom on Tuesday as he listened to a 12-year-old boy accuse him of sexual molestation.

Beacham, 35, known professionally as Tre Garrett, was arrested in January 2015 during an investigation by Fort Worth police of reports that a man was trying to solicit sex from boys in southeast Fort Worth.

Garrett, who gained national attention as the artistic director of the Jubilee Theater, has not been on staff there since February 2015.

The boy testified Tuesday that Beacham, drivin a silver BMW, stopped alongside his cousin and him and asked if they wanted to make $100.

The boy is not being identified because the Star-Telegram typically does not identify accusers in sexual assault cases.

The boy said he told Beacham, a stranger, yes.

Then Beacham told the boys to meet him at the back gate of their apartment complex, located in southeast Fort Worth near East Rosedale Street and Southeast Loop 820, the boy testified. Beacham showed the boys the $100 that could belong to whoever got in the car with him. His younger cousin watched as the accuser got into Beacham’s car, and they drove away, the boy said.

“He asked me if I would ever let anyone touch my private parts,” the boy said.

At first, the boy said “no’ but later said “yes,” he testified.

Theresa Fugate, the sexual assault nurse examiner who spoke with the boy later that night, testified about what the boy told her.

“He pulled my pants down a little bit and sucked my middle part,” Fugate said the boy told her. “I hit him and pushed his face away and then took the $100 and left.”

Through a former attorney, Garrett has maintained his innocence.

In her opening statement, prosecutor Melinda Westmoreland said, “A parent’s worst nightmare is that a stranger will pick up their kid and it became this family’s reality.”

Cody Cofer, Beacham’s attorney, told the jury his client was at a board meeting and then at a store during the time prosecutors say he was soliciting the 12-year-old witness.

“They were able to verify the transaction,” Cofer said outside the courtroom.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit, initially three young males implicated Beacham in multiple sexual assaults. A 17-year-old told Fort Worth police that on Jan. 9 a man with a goatee driving a gray BMW approached him and asked if he knew anyone who would engage in oral sex for $100, the affidavit said. The teen told police that he ran away after the man showed him the money.

On Jan. 12, 2015, a man in a BMW drove up beside two boys, 10 and 11, and asked if they wanted to make $100. The boys said Beacham showed them cash and asked them to get into his car. The younger boy declined and later told his mother what had happened. The boy's mother called the police.

When officers questioned him later, the 11-year-old gave police five $20 bills and said that he got them from Beacham.

The three boys identified Beacham in a photo array as the man who offered them money for sex. One boy has since recanted his statement, according to police.

This story contains material from Star-Telegram archives

This story was originally published May 10, 2016 at 7:58 PM with the headline "Former Fort Worth theater director on trial in child sex assault case."