Twist to Sex Case That Has Hit Supreme Court… Sotomayor Was on Judge Panel That Set Aside Verdict for “S&M Svengali”
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on February 23, 2010
Supreme Court of the United States, SCOTUS building
We haven’t heard much about Justice Sonia Sotomayor since her Obama appointment to the US Supreme Court… until now anyway, with the sensational “S&M Svengali” sex case and the perverted predator who was given a free pass on his 9-year prison sentence.
Reported by FOX News: Supreme Court to Hear Sex Offender Case Sotomayor Set Aside in Lower Court:
WASHINGTON — It’s all about sex at the Supreme Court Wednesday when the justices hear arguments in cases involving a national sex offender database and the federal government’s appeal of a lower court ruling setting free a man dubbed the S&M Svengali.
The case involving Glenn Marcus (aka the S&M Svengali) has drawn a bit of added interest because now-Justice Sonia Sotomayor was part of the three judge panel in New York that set aside a nine-year prison sentence.
Marcus was convicted of sex trafficking after encouraging women to participate in what the government describes as “violent sexual activity.” He posted photos and videos from the encounters on a for-profit Web site called “Slavespace.”
Following his conviction, a three judge panel of the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that included Sotomayor set aside the verdict saying some of the alleged bad acts took place before the 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act went into effect.
In her brief to the high court, Solicitor General Elena Kagan says the conviction should be reinstated because Marcus never objected at trial to the admission of evidence presented against him and failed to show any plain error affecting his right to a fair trial. Kagan notes that then Judge Sotomayor agreed with the decision to overturn the conviction but did so in fealty to Second Circuit precedent.
Sotomayor’s concurring opinion cautioned that “where there is no reasonable possibility that an error not objected to at trial had an effect on the judgment, the Supreme Court counsels us against exercising our discretion to notice that error.” Because of her prior involvement in the case, Sotomayor is not expected to take part in this review.
Wednesday’s other case looks at a 2006 federal sex offender registration law which requires newly convicted offenders to sign up in an updated national database. In 2007, the Justice Department issued a requirement that people convicted of sex offenses before 2006 also register in the new database.
This was posted about scumbag lowlife Marcus in 2007 at One Angry Girl: No escape from S&M Svengali:
BY JOHN MARZULLI
DAILY NEWS | Wednesday, February 14th, 2007
A woman who says she was forced into sexual slavery took jurors on a stomach-turning journey through her S&M hell yesterday, testifying against the captor who called himself “God.”
Jodi, a petite, 39-year-old from Wisconsin, testified that she was powerless to escape the twisted control of defendant Glenn Marcus, a sadomasochistic Svengali she met in 1998 on the Internet.
Federal Judge Allyne Ross allowed the witness to be identified by just her first name to spare her embarrassment. Speaking in a husky monotone, Jodi described the whippings, mutilations and torture she said she received at the hands of Marcus, who sold comic books and lived with his parents on Long Island.
Marcus also lorded over three other female slaves he dubbed “Doggie,” “Nameless” and “Robot, ” Jodi said. But after Jodi agreed to submit to Marcus’ fantasies, she became his “ultimate slave,” the one he called “It,” she said. He initiated Jodi by shaving her head and branding the letter “G” on her buttocks, she said. He later carved “Slave” on her stomach, Jodi said.
“I was now his property and I belonged to him,” Jodi testified in Brooklyn Federal Court, where Marcus, 53, is on trial for sex trafficking, forced labor and disseminating obscene photos of the victim on his Web site. “And whatever I was before I came to him didn’t exist anymore.”
Jodi had dabbled with sadomasochism in two relationships before meeting Marcus, but she said she was not prepared for his extreme brutality.
In one attack, he burned Jodi with a cigarette all over her body, including her genitals, she said. “I felt like I was literally in hell. I felt like I was on fire and couldn’t put it out,” she said.
Jodi was afraid to complain to the other female “slaves” out of fear they would tell Marcus and she would be punished further, she said.
Prosecutor Pamela Chen played a rambling 2005 phone conversation recorded by Jodi in which Marcus conceded, “I don’t know, maybe there’s something dreadfully wrong with me.”
The defense is arguing that Marcus’ relationships were consensual.
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