Vanessa Roberts Avery, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, and David Sundberg, Special Agent in Charge of the New Haven Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, announced that a federal grand jury in New Haven returned an indictment today charging DAVID MARSHALL, also known as “Saint,” 37, of Bristol, with sex trafficking and related offenses.
As alleged in court documents, between January and April 2022, Marshall trafficked an adult female victim. He sold the victim for commercial sex and repeatedly raped and beat the victim if she did not follow his orders. Marshall also controlled the victim by plying her with fentanyl and threatening to harm her family. In March 2022, the victim attempted to escape from Marshall and obtained an order of protection against him after he was arrested by Cromwell Police for threatening to kill her. On April 27, 2022, Marshall was arrested by police in Freeport, Maine, after he severely beat the victim. While in jail, Marshall contacted the victim in violation of the protection order, and attempted to convince her not to cooperate with the police and to continue to prostitute herself to earn money to bail him out of jail. Marshall also contacted another person from jail in an attempt to remotely erase the evidence on his cell phone, but he was unable to do so because the FBI had already secured the phone.
The indictment charges Marshall with one count of sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion, which carries a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of 15 years and a maximum term of imprisonment of life; one count of attempted obstruction of sex trafficking enforcement, which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 25 years; and one count of interstate violation of a protection order, which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of five years, but the maximum penalty may be increased to 10 years if the conduct resulted in serious bodily injury to the victim, or to life imprisonment if the conduct constituted sexual abuse or aggravated sexual abuse.
Marshall has been detained since his arrest on a federal criminal complaint in Maine on October 31, 2022. He appeared today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert M. Spector in New Haven and entered a plea of not guilty to the charges.
U.S. Attorney Avery stressed that an indictment is not evidence of guilt. Charges are only allegations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
This matter is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with the assistance of the Newington Police Department, Cromwell Police Department, Freeport (Maine) Police Department, and Connecticut Department of Correction. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Angel M. Krull and Amanda S. Oakes.
U.S. Attorney Avery thanked the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maine for its assistance in this case.