Marcellis Blackwell pleaded guilty to 18 federal civil rights counts involving men he encountered while working as a police officer.
ST. LOUIS, MO — A former North County Police Cooperative officer has admitted sexually assaulting 18 men after detaining or arresting them, pleading guilty in federal court to civil rights charges stemming from misconduct that prosecutors said occurred over about seven months while he was on duty.
Marcellis Blackwell, 36, of St. Louis, pleaded guilty Monday, Aug. 10, in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to 18 counts of deprivation of rights under color of law. Federal prosecutors said each count involved abusive sexual contact and 15 involved kidnapping. The charges centered on the victims’ constitutional right to bodily integrity and Blackwell’s use of his authority as a police officer during the encounters.
Under his plea agreement, Blackwell admitted sexually assaulting the 18 men between Nov. 8, 2022, and June 5, 2023, while working for the North County Police Cooperative. Prosecutors said the assaults generally followed traffic stops or arrests. Sixteen of the men were handcuffed when the sexual assaults occurred, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Blackwell also admitted taking 15 of the men to remote locations after turning off his body-worn camera. Those locations included a high school and the back parking lot of his police department, prosecutors said. In one case described by federal authorities, Blackwell detained two men after a traffic crash. He sexually touched one while the man was in the back seat of the police vehicle and then took the other man to a remote location.
The plea agreement also addressed Blackwell’s police reports. Federal prosecutors said he falsified reports on 13 occasions by stating that his body-worn camera had remained active for his entire interaction with arrestees when it had not. The admissions tied the sexual misconduct to Blackwell’s official police authority and to steps he took while documenting the encounters.
The investigation began in June 2023 after one of the men contacted the North County Police Cooperative and reported an assault from the previous day, federal authorities said. As additional men came forward, the FBI took over the investigation. Blackwell was later indicted in federal court as investigators continued reviewing allegations involving people he had detained or arrested.
The scope of the case expanded before Blackwell’s guilty plea. A superseding federal indictment returned in January 2024 accused him of sexually assaulting 19 men and contained 36 charges, including 19 counts of deprivation of rights under color of law and 17 counts involving the alteration of records in a federal investigation. At that stage, the accusations remained allegations, and Blackwell was presumed innocent of them.
The 2026 plea resolves 18 civil rights counts through Blackwell’s admissions of guilt. The Justice Department’s announcement of the plea did not explain the disposition of every other count contained in the earlier superseding indictment or why the number of men covered by the guilty plea was 18 rather than the 19 alleged in that indictment.
Federal prosecutors have said they will ask for a sentence of 30 years in prison. Blackwell is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 24. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christine Krug and Jennifer Szczucinski are prosecuting the case, which was investigated by the FBI after the North County Police Cooperative’s initial investigation.
Author note: Last updated August 13, 2026.