By Jeff Lipton
But the jury of seven men and five women found the defendant, Glenn Marcus, not guilty of distributing obscene materials.
The jurors reached agreement after seven days of deliberations, despite having appeared to reached an impasse at one point. The guilty verdicts encompass aggravated sexual abuse as well, and Marcus faces sentences ranging from 30 years to life imprisonment on both counts when he is sentenced on June 5, according to Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf.
U.S. District Court Judge Allyne Ross allowed Marcus to be released on $1 million bail, which was secured with his parents' North Woodmere home, Nardoza said.
Marcus was on trial for sexually torturing a now 39-year-old woman who has been identified only as "Jodi." He posted photos of sadomasochistic acts on his Web site, which he forced her to operate eight to 10 hours a day without compensation between November 1999 and September 2001, according to prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Marcus lived in his parents' North Woodmere home during the time he carried out what prosecutors described as his "horrific sexual abuses" - between 1998, when he met the woman on the Internet, and May 12, 2005, when he was arrested, prosecutors said.
He punished the woman when she expressed a desire to leave him in January 2000, forcing her into his parents' basement in North Woodmere, placing a hood over her head, assaulting her with hypodermic needles and a knife and then posting these images on his Web site, authorities said.
In August 2001, when the victim once again asked for her freedom, Marcus took her to the basement of a Hewlett residence of a female acquaintance, bashed her head against a metal beam and bound her ankles and wrists to the basement ceiling, leaving her there for several hours, prosecutors charged. He then forced her to have sexual intercourse with him, photos of which he also posted on the Web site, prosecutors said.
When the woman finally managed to escape, Marcus threatened that if she went to the authorities, he would send the Web site images of her to her parents and to newspapers to humiliate her.
"I was very disappointed in the verdict," said Marcus's attorney, Maurice Sercarz. He added that during the trial, he had made a motion to dismiss the sex trafficking and forced labor charges because he felt strongly that the federal statutes cited in the case did not apply to Marcus's behavior. Sercarz is hopeful that the judge will still act on the motion and set aside the jury's verdicts.
Sercarz said it was unfortunate that "the jury clearly felt that my client's conduct should be [punished]. But I don't think the statute applies to him." He also said, "I was very impressed with the jury, who worked tirelessly on the case. I can't say they didn't give my client their full effort."
Sercarz has maintained that the woman was a willing participant in the sadomasochistic acts, and said she even acknowledged that "she had a good time" with Marcus.
The sensational trial began on Feb. 12 in Brooklyn Federal Court, and testimony took just over a week.
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