Marquez v. United States
| Decision Date | 10 September 2019 |
| Docket Number | EP-12-CR-1351-FM-1,EP-18-CV-112-FM |
| Parties | CHARLES MARQUEZ, Reg. No. 99443-280, Movant, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Texas |
Movant Charles Marquez challenges his consecutive life sentences for sex trafficking through a pro se motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (ECF No. 348).1 For the reasons discussed below, the Court will deny the motion. The Court will additionally deny Marquez a certificate of appealability.
On December 19, 2012, a grand jury in the Western District of Texas returned a superseding indictment against Marquez and co-defendant Martha Jimenez Sanchez. Superseding Indictment, ECF No. 74. It charged Marquez with sex trafficking children, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1591(a)(1), (a)(2), and (b)(2) (Count One); sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1591(a)(1), (a)(2), and (b)(1) (Counts Two and Three); transporting for prostitution, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2421 (Count Four); coercing and enticing a person to travel in interstate commerce to engage in prostitution and sexual activity, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2422(a) (Count Five); conspiring to coerce and entice a person to travel in interstate commerce to engage in prostitution and sexual activity, inviolation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 (Count Six); and importing an alien for immoral purpose, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1328 (Count Seven).
Marquez pleaded not guilty and proceeded to trial. The evidence presented established Marquez, for several years, ran an escort service in El Paso, Texas. He recruited women through advertisements in Spanish language newspapers in El Paso and Juarez, Mexico. He sought desperate and vulnerable women who could not work legally in the United States. He invited the women who answered his advertisements to meet him for interviews in the United States. During the interviews, he told them something about the job, but not everything. As a result, some of the women first learned the job involved prostitution when they found themselves in hotel rooms confronted by men asking for sex.
Marquez sexually assaulted many of the women or coerced them into having sex with him. On one occasion, he recruited a sixteen-year-old girl identified as C.V.C., raped her, and scheduled her to have sex with numerous men. He knew she was sixteen, but he told her not to disclose this fact to anyone else.
During a joint Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security investigation into Marquez's activities, the agents identified thirty women who worked for Marquez as prostitutes.
Marquez advertised for clients for the women on the internet. When he received responses, he sometimes drove the women to meet their clients at residences or hotel rooms. He took women on at least three trips from El Paso to Albuquerque, New Mexico. His third trip to Albuquerque ended when police officers arrested one of his employees for prostitution. He also transported at least one former employee from Mexico into Texas after he demanded that she return to work for him as a prostitute.
Recorded phone calls, phone records, text messages, and ledgers also established that Marquez ran a prostitution business. Text messages included over 100 evaluations by one client about the sexualperformance of women who worked for Marquez. The ledgers contained the names of clients, the names of the women, and the amounts the clients paid for the services provided by the women.
Marquez kept the women working for him through threats of violence or deportation. He punished women who angered him by sending them more than the usual number of clients. He threatened women who wanted to leave by implying he had friends who could arrest or deport them. He even told one woman he had friends in a drug cartel in Juarez. Thus, he made the women believe he would harm them if they ever crossed or left him.
Once both parties rested, Marquez moved for a judgment of acquittal under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29 on all counts of the superseding indictment. The Court denied the motion as to all counts except Count Three. The Court reserved ruling on the motion as to Count Three.
On November 21, 2013, after a nine-day trial, the jury found Marquez guilty on all seven counts of the superseding indictment. The Court then granted the motion for a judgment of acquittal as to Count Three. Order, ECF No. 232.
Marquez was sentenced on September 3, 2014 to life imprisonment on Counts One and Two, 120 months' imprisonment on Count Four, 240 months' imprisonment on Count Five, 60 months' imprisonment on Count Six, and 120 months imprisonment on Count Seven. J. Crim. Case, ECF No. 314. Each of the individual sentences fell within the advisory sentencing guideline range. The Court ordered the sentences to run consecutively.
Marquez filed a timely notice of appeal. He asserted four claims:
(1) the district court abused its discretion by admitting as intrinsic evidence that he had sexual intercourse with an underage girl (C.V.C.), and by admitting as extrinsic, for the purpose of demonstrating knowledge and intent under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b), evidence that he was separately investigated in 1998 and 1999 for running an escort service; (2) his due process rights were violated by the Government's failure to correctfalse testimony; and (3) his sentence was substantively unreasonable. Although Marquez's brief mentions a fourth issue, that his convictions should be reversed based on cumulative error, he fails to adequately brief this issue and has accordingly abandoned it.
United States v. Marquez, 667 F. App'x 496, 497 (5th Cir. 2016). The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Marquez's claims and affirmed his convictions and sentences on August 25, 2016. Id., at 498. The Supreme Court denied his petition for a writ of certiorari on March 27, 2017. Marquez v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 1387 (2017).
Marquez certified he mailed his § 2255 Motion on March 19, 2018, but it was not filed in the Court until April 2, 2018. Mot to Vacate, ECF No. 348. He alleged eleven grounds for relief:
Marquez asks the Court to vacate the convictions and sentences and schedule him for a new trial.
After a defendant has been convicted and exhausted or waived any right to appeal, a court is normally "entitled to presume that the defendant stands fairly and finally convicted." United States v. Willis, 273 F.3d 592, 595 (5th Cir. 2001) (citing United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 164 (1982)). A § 2255 motion "'provides the primary means of collateral attack on a federal sentence.'" Pack v. Yusuff, 218 F.3d 448, 451 (5th Cir. 2000) (quoting Cox v. Warden, 911 F.2d 1111, 1113 (5th Cir. 1990)). Relief under § 2255 is warranted for errors that occurred at trial or at sentencing. Ojo v. INS, 106 F.3d 680, 683 (5th Cir. 1997). But it "'is reserved for transgressions of constitutional rights and for a narrow range of injuries that could not have been raised on direct appeal and would, if condoned, result in a complete miscarriage of justice.'" United States v. Gaudet, 81 F.3d 585, 589 (5th Cir. 1996) (emphasis added) (quoting United States v. Segler, 37 F.3d 1131, 1133 (5th Cir. 1994)). Before a court will grant relief pursuant to § 2255, a movant must establish (1) his sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States; (2) the sentencing court was without jurisdiction to impose the sentence; (3) the sentence was in excess of the maximum authorized by law; or (4) the sentence isotherwise subject to collateral attack. United States v. Seyfert, 67 F.3d 544, 546 (5th Cir. 1995) (citations omitted).
Ultimately, the movant bears the burden of establishing his claims of error...
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