Ex-St. Louis-area officer accused of sexually assaulting 11 more detained men

A new federal indictment accuses a former St. Louis-area police officer of sexually assaulting 19 men while they were restrained and in his custody, marking 11 additional victims.

Marcellis Blackwell of St. Louis assaulted the men from Nov. 8, 2022, to June 5, 2023, according to the 36-count superseding indictment returned by a grand jury Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.

He has now been charged with 19 counts of deprivation of rights under color of law and 17 counts of altering records in a federal investigation. 

Blackwell, 34, is accused of groping the men under their clothing without their consent and “without a legitimate government purpose,” the indictment said. The assaults occurred while the men were detained, restrained or under arrest.

In one instance, Blackwell is accused of sodomizing a man with his finger, according to the indictment.

Blackwell also knowingly falsified arrest reports about the men he’s accused of assaulting, the indictment stated. 

Blackwell’s attorney, Evan Greenberg, declined Thursday night to comment.

The indictment also mentions about 15 instances in which Blackwell is accused of kidnapping the victims.

Blackwell was an officer for about a year for the North County Police Cooperative, an agency that serves several communities in north St. Louis County. 

In September, a federal indictment accused Blackwell of groping eight men he’d handcuffed. Blackwell has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges filed in September, according to court records. It was unclear Thursday whether he had entered a new plea based on the superseding indictment.

The FBI in St. Louis has set up a hotline for potential victims.