Conducting a Multijurisdictional Human Trafficking Prosecution: Tips and Tricks (REPEAT)

In the summer of 2020, a fourteen-year-old child from Atlanta went missing. The child was found to have been communicating with Robert Fyke, a thirty-four-year-old living in Texas. The FBI learned that Fyke trafficked the child from Georgia to Texas, and eventually to the home of Wayne Marcell in Connecticut. After a search of Fyke's phone, agents in Connecticut were able to recover the child from Marcell's basement. With the coordination of federal prosecutors in Texas, Connecticut, and Missouri, Fyke and Marcell were charged with child trafficking and production of CSAM. They both ultimately pled guilty and received a combined fifty-two years in prison. The presenters will discuss this case and the pointers they learned when conducting a human trafficking prosecution across multiple jurisdictions. In addition to the facts of the case, they will discuss how they utilized their shared resources, some of the victim and venue issues they had to navigate, and takeaways for future prosecutions.