Brentwood – The son of multimillionaire businessman John “Jay” Brooks sought revenge just as his father did when they planned the murder-for-hire killing of their one-time mover in 2005, prosecutors said during closing arguments in Jesse Brooks' conspiracy to commit murder trial.

“It was accomplished by the money and the power that they had,” Senior Assistant Attorney General Janice Rundles said this morning in Rockingham County Superior Court.

Prosecutors spent nearly an hour outlining how accounts by two co-conspirators in the murder of Jack Reid, 57, of Derry, and several witnesses who knew about the murder plot all revealed Brooks’ alleged guilt.

“It tells you the plan to kill Jack Reid wasn’t a secret to anyone who was close to Jay Brooks. It tells you it was a Brooks family affair,” Rundles said.

Jesse Brooks, 32, is accused of recruiting friends for the killing in 2003 and 2005, then making payoffs to a Las Vegas contractor who took part in the June 27, 2005 murder for $10,000.

Brooks’ father, John, is now serving life in prison for capital murder. Before his November 2006 arrest, he was known as one of New Hampshire’s most successful businessmen, founding a medical supply company, PolyVac, which he sold for roughly $30 million.

Defense lawyer William Kettlewell did not deny John Brooks’ obsession or longstanding plan to kill Reid, but said the case against his client was strictly guilt by association.

He also asked jurors to look past the numerous mentions of the Brooks family fortunes, which told of numerous homes and cars spanning from Beverly Hills, Calif., and Las Vegas to New Hampshire’s coastline in New Castle.

“You can’t punish this young man because of his parents’ financial success because it has nothing to do with the decision you have to make,” Kettlewell said. “In this country, we don’t punish people because they’re rich or poor or who they socialize with.”

Reid’s murder became a two-year obsession for John Brooks, who believed the mover he hired to load up two moving trucks filled with family valuables arranged for them to be stolen. The theft happened in the early morning hours of September 30, 2003, at a Brooks-owned warehouse near Manchester Airport.

The theft angered Brooks so much that he declared he wanted Reid dead that day, according to witnesses.

Prosecutors said plans for the murder took a brief hiatus in 2004 before Brooks formed another plan of kidnapping Reid with the ruse of a fictional moving job.

Another contractor, Robin Knight, 57, of North Hampton, agreed to call Reid on a disposable cell phone to set up what Reid believed was a trash-hauling job at a Deerfield horse farm.

Instead, two men led him into a barn where an armed John Brooks and another man, Michael Benton, were waiting. Benton bludgeoned Reid in the head with a three-pound sledgehammer. John Brooks delivered the final blows to Reid’s chest.

“(Reid) was suspected and convicted of a crime he did not commit based on the flimsiest possible evidence,” Rundles said. “The worst thing Jack Reid had to endure that he was unknowingly watched and stalked for two years and how he was ultimately lured to his death because (John Brooks) and the defendant felt entitled to take revenge for his imagined crime.”

Knight was convicted of being an accomplice to first-degree murder. Brooks’ friend, Benton, 33, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for his testimony. Vrooman, 53, agreed to become a state’s witness as well in exchange for pleading guilty for conspiracy to commit capital murder and hindering apprehension.

Brooks was the last of the five men to be tried in the case. Jurors began getting instructions from Judge Tina Nadeau at 2:15 p.m.

Click on the video at left for an excerpt from the defense's closing arguments. Click on the one at right for the defense's reaction to the prosecution's closing arguments: