A former assistant professor at Florida A&M University was convicted Thursday of charges that he sexually abused a minor over a period of several years.
Gari Tookes, 38, was found guilty by a six-person jury after a three-day trial in Leon Circuit Court. He was arrested in 2021 on lewd and lascivious molestation of a child under 12 years of age and three related charges.
Tookes, hired at FAMU in 2018, worked as an assistant professor in the College of Social Sciences and a research grantee at the Medical Marijuana Education and Research Initiative. In 2020, he was among authors of a $1.2 million grant for a criminal diversion program in Gadsden County that was touted at the time by the Governor’s Office. He is no longer listed as a university employee on FAMU’s online directory.
The victim told investigators that Tookes began touching him inappropriately when he was in elementary school and that it continued until he was a young teenager. He reported that the abuse “literally happened all the time.”
Tookes, who was placed on pretrial release after his arrest, was booked Thursday into the Leon County Detention Facility while he awaits sentencing.