Jesse Marks was convicted of drugging and trafficking hundreds of women over two decades near Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
A Marine veteran who drugged and prostituted hundreds of women over the past two decades has been sentenced to 30 years in prison, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
Jesse Gabriel Marks, 38, trafficked as many as 600 women after getting them hooked on narcotics near Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, authorities said.
Marks preyed on women and at least one minor. “He used drugs, including heroin and methamphetamine, to keep them dependent on and prostituting for him,” said the U.S. Attorney's Office in a statement.
He physically and emotionally abused many of his victims and slipped them “drug cocktails” without their knowledge, the statement said. "Once they were unconscious or nearly unconscious, sexually assaulted them.”
“He recorded many of those sexual assaults on video,” according to the statement.
After meeting Marks, "many victims either developed addictions or deepened their addictions, ruining their health and, in many cases, their lives,” the statement said.
Marks came to the attention of the Onslow County Sheriff's Office and military investigators during a probe into the proliferation of drugs at the Marine base, officials said. The "investigation went up from there,” the statement said.
He was originally charged with drug possession, but those counts were dropped as part of plea deal in which Marks admitted he engaged in sex trafficking, the federal prosecutors' statement said.
He also instructed his victims in ways to exploit and entice service members, officials said.
“Indeed, evidence indicated that he used his experience as a Marine to teach women working for him how to better target Marines,” the statement said.
He "confessed to prostituting over two hundred victims and one witness put that number at closer to six hundred,” the statement said. “He sold many kilograms of narcotics, including cocaine, crack cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.”
