Seattle Sex Trafficking | A Perfect Scam | Forensic Files

[audio logo] - Police say it started as an offer to help fight prostitution, but it was just the opposite.
Ingrid Arbuthnot-Stohl: David Delay told them that they could earn millions of dollars
by participating in a documentary about prostitution. - He said that he had contacts with other production
companies, HBO, and Ryan Seacrest Productions. - You're gonna be famous, and you're gonna be rich.
Everybody, you're gonna be rich. MK: He said that once it aired, that I would and all the other girls would get $20 million each.
Ingrid Arbuthnot-Stohl: They just were exploiting these women in a very, very cruel way.
Kate Crisham: This was selling a dream that ended up being a nightmare. [unsettling music]
♪ ♪ [theme music] ♪ ♪ [serene music] ♪ ♪ Natalie D'Amico: November 2014, I recall very vividly in my mind, I was having a normal day,
or so I thought. An officer approached me, and she said, oh man, do I have a case coming your way.
All right. Well, I guess I'll see it come across my desk Monday morning. And I sure enough did.
Redmond is a very affluent city. It is home to a lot of tech companies. Some of those include Microsoft, Amazon,
so definitely a booming city about 15, 20 minutes east of Seattle. A case like this was not common at all.
It was really mind-blowing just right off the bat before it even exploded. - I received a call from Detective Natalie D'Amico
with the Redmond Police Department who informed me that she had a case that was starting
out as cyber harassment. But the more she had investigated it, she discovered that it was actually
looking like it was human trafficking of women we were calling MK at this point.
- This victim, who was 18 but a senior at a local high school, had met David and Reece online.
She wanted a relationship with Reece. And then all of a sudden, when Reece comes to pick her up
from school and they meet for the first time, all of a sudden then there's her older boyfriend in the
car, right? Now, he can do what he is gonna do with her and introduce himself. That's a great recruiting tool, and
you see that with other sex trafficking cases. You have the female working for you
and doing some of the reaching out. MK: At first, they treated me very well. They took me to, like, I mean, hotels and stuff just for fun.
I just thought that, oh, I have a lot of money, and I'll be around people that care about me.
I just thought that sounded great. - Her parents had tried to report her as missing or a runaway to several different
police departments. MK: Maybe a month after meeting them, it kind of got to the point where they slowly
introduced the whole escorting or prostitution phase, whatever you want to call it.
- It got real big real fast. She's wanting to leave their house and does. And then they post pictures of her
looking really provocative on Facebook, harassing her. It's like, you know, sextortion.
How do I get the evidence to prove it was them so that I can charge them, you know,
search warrant to Facebook, interview with the victim, and see if we can get some charges filed.
That's where my mind goes. But you see, that's one case, one crime before it got to a web of many others.
Ingrid Arbuthnot-Stohl: In this particular scam, David Delay told them that they could earn millions of dollars
by participating in a documentary about prostitution. So the idea was that they would go on prostitution dates.
And then after they were done, they would set up with him and do an interview. And so he would interview them about their experiences.
Natalie D'Amico: I'm a film producer. I do some shows with HBO and stuff. So here's a picture of me outside HBO.
He sends the picture. He starts to dangle a carrot in front of them, gets them to slowly buy in
on everything about who he is. Everybody, you're gonna be rich. You're gonna be rich.
MK: He said that I would make $20 million from the documentary and that it was--
if porn was legal, then escorting and prostitution should be legal too, and that once it aired or whatever,
that I would and all the other girls would get $20 million each. Natalie D'Amico: So the scam started with David and Reece.
They would come up with this plan to, I'm gonna meet somebody online-- or maybe I'll meet them in person
but easier online-- gets them to slowly buy in on everything about who he is. Well, at the same time, he is trying
to find out what they're most vulnerable with, and he would just pounce on that.
Ingrid Arbuthnot-Stohl: David Delay is an extremely manipulative person. In all of these women, he found something vulnerable that he
could latch on to. Natalie D'Amico: One girl was lonely, wanted friends. He's gonna introduce her to people.
One girl wants to be famous. He says he's gonna put her in a video. One girl is an aspiring musician.
Oh, I'm gonna get you to work with a musician who's famous already, and then you're gonna get your name out there,
and you're gonna be famous, and you're gonna be rich. [shutters clicking] Ingrid Arbuthnot-Stohl: What he did was he
charged these girls what he called production fees. He and his coconspirator, Marysa, she would help him book
the dates for these girls. And they would take all the money and give them a little bit, which
is really common for a lot of pimp behavior is you give a little bit to the woman, and then the rest of it
goes into your own personal fund. He was taking at least $1,200 a week in production
fees from some people. David took that money. He spent it on car rentals, trips,
first-class tickets on airplanes, nicer hotels, just stuff. And he made them sign a nondisclosure,
which kept them compliant because they believed it was real. And he threatened to sue them if they left,
so it was really difficult for some women to break away because they were afraid of what
would happen if they did. MK: They were not there at the time, so that's how I got out.
They had scheduled some man to come over that night, but I had decided before that person comes
over that I was gonna, you know, get on it and actually leave. So that's what I did.
[unsettling music] ♪ ♪ - When he'd first meet somebody, he'd rent a Mustang. That was his thing of choice.
And he'd go pick up these girls in a Mustang, so it appeared as if he had some sort of money.
And then he'd bring them back to this apartment where they were like, what is this?
David and Marysa were exploiting these women in a very, very cruel way. - Once they signed the contract that
says, you will make $20 million, in some cases, they're in. They're in, and it's over.
He has them. Natalie D'Amico: What I needed to get, according to the prosecutor, so that I could file a charge
was a witness statement. They wanted a witness statement to confirm everything that MK had said.
- I often, in these cases, will work both alongside the FBI or another federal agency
and local or state law enforcement. And here we really worked very well together.
And Natalie really did a great job investigating the initial aspects of this case.
She was able to develop a rapport with the initial victim who came in that really made it comfortable for that victim
to tell Natalie exactly what the defendant had done to her. And she also was able to give her information
about other victims. - Having a second person to say that they went through this
too was just gonna make the case so strong. So I got the number for this other witness
from MK, called her up. I explained who I am, what I was doing. [phone ringing] She was willing for me to come out and
meet her and get a statement. When you get the opportunity, you have to go right then and there.
[siren wailing] So I got that statement, MK's statement, and everything I had found online and
other results I had found from what MK had told me all together as one. Prosecutors said, that looks good.
You can get a search warrant for the apartment. Ingrid Arbuthnot-Stohl: They did a search
warrant of David's apartment. Natalie D'Amico: The apartment we did the search warrant at was disgusting.
It was really unkept. It smelled horrible. Ingrid Arbuthnot-Stohl: His apartment reeked of, like,
animal urine, and it was dirty and gross. We were looking for evidence that would be indicative of prostitution,
so prostitution ads-- there were many ads on a site that's now taken down called Backpage--
financial records, hotel stays. - We found a stack of hotel key cards like-- they were 700 and something.
Some of those were the same hotels that MK said she stayed at. - The significance of the hotel key cards
was that he was booking hotel rooms for these girls and women to engage in prostitution.
Natalie D'Amico: We saw a contract with MK's name on it laid out on the table. It was almost planted there for me.
It had her signature on it, and it was the contract she told us about. All these different cities, different hotels,
you're talking about bringing somebody across state lines, that meets the federal statute
of possible sex trafficking. [unsettling music] ♪ ♪ Ingrid Arbuthnot-Stohl: David had
a scam in which he would tell people, especially vulnerable women that were looking for money or an escape
from their lives, that he was filming a documentary on prostitution and that if they participated in this documentary,
they could earn $20 million in a year. And all they had to do was go on dates and engage in prostitution.
And then after they engaged in prostitution, he would interview them for their stories.
There was a follow-on deal that he offered to some women where, if they made it through the first year and
the documentary was successful, that he would do a reality series of how they spent their $20 million.
- Why is it so easy for people like David Delay to misrepresent themselves. I mean, he took a couple of pictures
in front of HBO or some other-- I mean, do you realize how much trust we human beings
put in what we see? Think about it. When you see things, you trust in what you see.
Oh, I see, there's a building. There is-- oh, yes, that is a producer's building.
This is a director. This is a streaming service. And so he's in that office, and this is the narrative
that he's written. Those pictures support that narrative, and that's one of the clever things about good scammers.
They create a very believable narrative. So they fill that narrative with pictures,
sometimes videos, audio files, and websites, to support that narrative. And we believe it because we see the entire narrative.
Honestly, it's pretty easy to trick people, and it-- I hate to say it, but you almost
have to be like me all the time where you're constantly skeptical, like, OK, show me the proof.
Let's verify. Was that a picture found anywhere else in the internet? You know, was this website registered
three weeks ago instead of 2 years ago or 10 years ago? Nowadays, you need to verify, verify,
verify what you see online and take nothing for granted. Ingrid Arbuthnot-Stohl: The warrant at the apartment
was extremely valuable in terms of evidence. We found plane tickets, condoms, lube, all that kind
of stuff, hotel receipts. What was really important was what we didn't find. He claimed to be this movie producer that was, you know,
putting on this gigantic documentary that was gonna break, you know, all records.
We didn't find anything that would indicate that he ever had equipment. Natalie D'Amico: David found out
his apartment was raided because we leave something there called a return of service form.
So it lists out everything I took. And then he gets a copy of the search warrant.
So wherever a search warrant is executed at, a copy is left so he can see even more details.
So he's probably looking at sex trafficking, you know. All this stuff is what-- you're the subject
of this type of investigation. Ingrid Arbuthnot-Stohl: Going through his computer,
he had been sending girls screenshots of his company's bank account, which was called
Grandpa's RV Productions. And this screenshot was showing these women that he had $155 million in the bank.
And I'm looking at this knowing-- by looking at his bank account records, his actual bank account records--
that he had never had anywhere close to that amount of money in his bank account.
So I started really looking at this picture, and I just kind of put my hand down.
I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. And I called Natalie, and I'm like, you're not gonna believe what I just found.
And in this picture, you can see that in between, like, a couple of numbers, there's,
like, a spacing cursor. And I'm like, this is just a doctored photo. And you go up, and you can actually see, like,
on an Excel document where you can move a column, you can see that little icon. And then you look up further, and
you can actually see the Excel toolbar at the very top of the screen, like, part of the toolbar.
But nobody pays attention to that, right? They were looking at the number, not necessarily the minute details that
were included in that photo. [gloomy music] ♪ ♪ Natalie D'Amico: He's not what you
would picture in your mind for a famous, rich film producer. And in talking to some of the victims,
they definitely mentioned right off the bat, they saw him and were like, yeah, I mean,
not what they thought at all. But some of them were, you know, able to see pictures of him before they even went out to meet him.
And, you know, they weren't going to necessarily be in a relationship with him, whether it be intimate or not.
They were just gonna go work for him as this producer, but he then, you know, pretty much became the pimp with them
and wanted a sex relationship with almost every one of them. DOUG FODEMAN: If I'm gonna perpetrate
a certain type of fraud, there are certain types of victims that are going to be more
open to my fraud, certain types of victims that are gonna be easier to defraud. The more vulnerable a person I can find,
the greater the opportunity that my fraud, my coercion, my threats will in fact work on someone I can use.
So yes, these scammers, like David Delay, intentionally target people who are most vulnerable.
Let's say someone who's homeless, someone who's been thrown out of a home, someone who's
already been abused, someone who is-- their life is falling apart, and they're desperately
looking for a lifeline. Sad as that is, there are people like that in all of our communities, in every country.
Those are the people, I think, are most vulnerable to be victimized. [rhythmic music]
♪ ♪ - Working with Natalie D'Amico was just phenomenal. She's a great detective.
From the moment that she called me, it wasn't like, hey, I got this thing. I'm not sure it was.
I have this thing. Here's all the evidence I have. We've already looked at all of this.
This is what I think it is, and I need some help. She was really willing and able to work with the FBI.
- Being assigned officially to the FBI or to an FBI agent, it means they have the power to do a lot more than just
assist us. They can write the subpoenas, their search warrants. It's a different system than ours, right?
It's the federal law's. I didn't have the ability to write search warrants there like she did,
and she couldn't where I'm at. So now you have both of us with the ability to investigate this with the powers
that we each had given to us, you know, through the peace officer certification.
- We came at it as a partnership, willing to set everything aside to make sure that we were doing right by the victims in this case.
[siren wailing] Natalie D'Amico: Once the search warrant was completed and we were able to file charges against David and
Reece, David turned himself in to the Redmond Police Department. I met him down in the lobby.
I told him who I was. I let him know he was under arrest. I read him his rights.
He was just straight to the point, I have an attorney. I would describe him as smug.
I mean, you think of the average person getting handcuffed, you know, looking at felonies,
they'd be freaking out. He was just so calm and confident. He probably just thought he could beat it, you know,
and get off this whole thing. And from there, he went to jail. I know he doesn't like women, and I know he doesn't
like probably authority. And I was probably over a foot shorter than him, so I think that just added to his initial hatred
that continued on throughout this whole thing for me. It wasn't long before he, you know,
was able to bail out and leave. Ingrid Arbuthnot-Stohl: Bail wasn't set properly, I believe.
And he went on the run with Marysa. Monique Ming Laven: Kiro 7's Nick McGurk is live right now at the Lynnwood apartment
that police say was a home base for prostitution. Nick. - And, Monique, when I talked to neighbors,
they said young women would come and go to this apartment at all hours of the night.
But lately, neighbors have been seeing a whole lot of police instead, police looking for two suspects now on the run.
- Once he left, where did he go? I don't know. So the, you know, FBI has access to a lot
more data and resources. And, you know, they work really closely with the Fugitive Task Force.
So being that he was a fugitive, I, you know, reached out to see if they could assist.
- Redmond said, hey, we could use some help tracking both of these people down. So we helped find where David and Marysa were.
- Him and Reece went on a little journey of-- they stopped at different cities around the US.
She ended up staying in Chicago. David decided that he was going to fly back to Seattle
to kind of face the music. Natalie D'Amico: I get a call from the FBI, and they're letting me know that David is
flying into Sea-Tac airport. I'm like, what? You know, he's coming back? This is perfect.
And then they're like, yeah, you want to go out there and get him? I'm going. This opportunity doesn't come around very often,
you know, where you get to go to the airport, walk with the FBI. They're bringing me to the jetway,
to the plane that just landed that has David on it. Ingrid Arbuthnot-Stohl: We had Natalie and then
a couple of our agents on my squad meet him at the plane and escort him directly to jail.
- I'm walking on it. And, you know, there's something just, like, this is TV. This isn't real.
I don't get to do this in Redmond. And, you know, I get on the plane, and there he is.
I saw him, can't miss him. And we made eye contact. And I want to say he was shocked to see me,
but he really was just, again, that same, you're gonna get me. I got to parade him all the way out of the airport,
and we booked him in jail. - We had agents out in Chicago who went to the hotel where Marysa was staying, and they arrested her on sight
and then seized the assets that she had at the time. - In that moment, it was so nice to be
able to deliver that good news amongst such horrendous stuff. And, I mean, not just personally,
but I always liked victims to see that this system works for you. It's supposed to.
It doesn't always. It's not perfect, but when we had that relationship, I felt like I was helping bridge that gap with them.
He was booked into the local county jail, awaiting court appearances. He is building his case.
He's talking to as many people as he can. He's trying to get his daughter to go dispose of evidence.
He is trying to find people to vouch for him so he can, you know, get out. Oh yeah, he was working real hard back there.
- David and Marysa in prison continued basically who they had always been. They know that we can monitor their jail calls.
I listened to hours and hours and hours of jail calls. Natalie D'Amico: David and Reece would
talk about their relationship. But more importantly, he was trying to get her to take the fall for him.
He kept saying, once I get you out, I'm gonna make you famous. She's still believing it.
He said, you're gonna have street cred, because if you take the fall for me and I'm out,
I can go work on your career. You're gonna get off easy because you're younger. You don't have any history.
He was just scheming any way he could to get out. [unsettling music] ♪ ♪ Ingrid Arbuthnot-Stohl: David just
has an arrogance and a narcissism about him that doesn't allow him to see his own faults.
He continued to tell everybody that he was innocent. He and Marysa found a way to communicate in jail,
and it was the same thing. He's like, if you take the fall for me, if you do this,
then I will help your music career. I'll do whatever you want. Natalie D'Amico: She was agreeing
to everything he was saying. And we didn't know, you know, what that was going to mean for our case.
She wouldn't, you know, flip against him, which is what we typically like because she knows everything
of the inner workings. She can tell us everything, you know, about what he was doing.
In this case, she was protecting him. And we couldn't use information from her because she
couldn't be trusted. - We found that he had talked his mother into putting money on Marysa's books
so that she would have money in jail. So we spent a lot of time trying to mitigate
some of what David was doing. Kate Crisham: He was constantly trying to pressure Marysa Comer into saying
that this had all been her fault, that he was not involved at all. And he did that both on jail calls, over email.
They were at the same detention facility, and so he somehow was able to give to her his password
to get into his email account. And so what he would do is he would write emails,
save them in the drafts. And then she would log into his account, read what he had said,
and then write back to him, which was a pretty ingenious way, frankly, of communicating.
And so he was constantly telling her that, again, that the people that were in her corner
did not have her best interests at heart, her lawyer didn't have her best interests at heart,
and just kept pressuring her to try to be the one that would take responsibility for all this.
- This relationship was a whole new level of toxic. You know, in the very beginning, she was a victim.
She was a college student on the other side of the country and an aspiring musician.
And they met online. There's the carrot he dangled. I'm gonna make you famous because you
want to be a musician, and I know all these people. So she picked up, left everything-- her family,
you know, her future-- and drove across the country and began her relationship with him.
Well, it really quickly became not just, you know, her being a victim. She started to help with this operation, whether she knew it
or not. Ingrid Arbuthnot-Stohl: She decided to turn around and not only help David but in some ways
help make the scam better. She kind of served as a front person to bring other women in.
Like, oh, yeah, David's done right by me, and he's helped me with my music career,
and he introduced me to these people. So she would bring those people in, but when she brought those people in,
she was relieving that pressure from herself of having to maybe earn this money.
MK: I can't remember what she really, like, said exactly, but I know she was just friendly and kind of, I
don't-- pursuing in some way that she was a nice person and, you know, actually genuinely cared
and wanted to get to know me. [somber music] ♪ ♪ Ingrid Arbuthnot-Stohl: Marysa met
MK online through a dating site and kind of romanced her. And MK thought she was having an online relationship
with Marysa. And they arranged a date for Marysa to come get her, like, literally after school.
MK was still in high school at the time. And when she showed up, David was with her,
and MK was very shocked by this. And eventually, they ended up kind of all having this very weird relationship together
where they separated her from her family, convinced her that her family didn't want her or love her
and that she was better off with them. And they ended up convincing her to prostitute
as kind of part of the agreement with them to be part of this romance with Marysa.
Natalie D'Amico: She was naive. She didn't have the life experience to really understand
what they were doing. And so when she would question it, they would-- unfortunately,
there was a verbal abuse. There was physical abuse at times. And then you're in this toxic relationship,
and you're afraid to go back home because, oh, I have to explain this. - MK was very vulnerable.
She had a learning disability. Her mom had cancer. She had a lot of things going on in her life that made her
especially vulnerable as well. - For many of our victims, they said that hearing
from, your know, another female, that this made them feel more comfortable, that this was
something that was legitimate. Natalie D'Amico: I recall a call he made to his parents.
And he is mentioning a backpack with, you know, an iPad and MacBook. And it was kind of--
I don't want to say coded, but it was like, you know what to do with it, right? And obviously, we're thinking, oh my gosh,
there's more electronics, and he's gonna try and get rid of them? So I call up Ingrid, which is what
I would do whenever I learned something, or vice versa. We're like, oh my gosh. - Natalie called me, and she's like, we
have to get to this first. And I said, great, what's our paperwork? And she said, I'm working on it.
So I called up another agent. I'm like, hey, what are you doing? He's like, I don't know, nothing.
I'm like, great, get in the car. Let's go. We went out to David's parents' home.
And we were able to get consent to search very specific areas where he may have stored that item.
David had many digital devices, and one of them that we were really looking for,
we had heard that there was another iPad out there along with a couple other devices.
And we were extremely interested in this iPad because we believed he used it for most
of his email traffic and saving documents and that kind of thing. So we were pretty sure that evidence that we needed
was on that laptop. And it turns out that his daughter actually had those items, and he had been
trying to convince her that, oh, I want you to have these items. Like, this laptop and stuff, you
can use it for school or whatever, but I need you to, like, just erase it first so it's only your stuff on there and not mine.
Thankfully, she did not. And through her attorney, we were able to get her to surrender those items
to us, which ended up being very crucial to our case. We found a lot of really relevant information
and evidence on that. Natalie D'Amico: When we found the laptops and had a forensic search done on them,
we found hundreds, if not thousands, of pictures of girls, women, really provocative,
sexual nature pictures. Some of them were our victims. Some of them were, you know, other females
we had never seen before that we wanted to try and find. - Some of the evidence that we found
relates to the other charges that were not prostitution based. We had charges for production of child pornography as well,
and we were able to find images on that of several girls that he had coerced into producing
their own child pornography. It was some of the most gross abuse of children I've ever seen.
[somber music] ♪ ♪ Kate Crisham: Very early on, when the Redmond Police Department initially
was searching one of the defendants' devices, they found some child sex abuse material.
So then they went back and got a federal search warrant to search for that evidence as well.
We suspected that there likely would be some on the devices. The initial victim who had disclosed
had just turned 18 when the defendant recruited her. And we found out that he recruited not only very
young women but also girls, high school girls, girls who were under the age of 18, and that he has a way
to try to manipulate them. He would pressure them, entice them to create these sexually explicit videos, which he would
then use to blackmail them. So those sexually explicit videos were actually-- the child sex abuse material was on his devices.
- When you send a sext to someone, a picture of yourself naked or partially naked,
a picture of yourself sexually exposed in some manner, and you're not into this, like as a porn star,
and this is your business-- that's a whole other thing-- this is something you don't want to be public,
you've given a tremendous amount of power to an individual to manipulate and control you further.
So, for instance, there have been scammers in this effort who have actually manipulated teens
into giving more pictures at the threat of releasing what they already have. It's brutal and emotionally draining.
A really high percent of sexts that are sent out on social media actually are stolen and put on revenge porn sites
or posted on porn sites. I mean, the risks are huge. And it's easy, sadly, to manipulate some people
if the need is great. - One victim, unfortunately-- it's so sad. She had lost a parent, and she was in grief counseling.
And she met him on a website online, and he used that to get what he wanted from her,
you know, whether videos, pictures from a juvenile, and promised to take care of her.
So that one was, I think, hit Ingrid and I pretty hard. I mean, they all are, but when you're
talking about a child who lost a parent, and you're luring them into your schemes online,
that's just, like, the worst you can get. [somber music] ♪ ♪ The court process was long.
I wanted to move on from this case. It was draining, it was exhausting, and we kept learning new things, new crimes.
We had to investigate new evidence through this whole time, all the way up to trial.
Kate Crisham: It really was a nationwide conspiracy. The defendant was based here in Western Washington,
but he was recruiting victims from all over the country and successfully flew in a number of them
from North Carolina, Pennsylvania, California. And then also, once he recruited his victims,
he often took them to different states as well. Ingrid Arbuthnot-Stohl: David in trial
was extremely difficult. The first couple of days, he threw a bunch of histrionics.
He refused to eat anything but baby food. He said that he was feeling ill. He collapsed on the floor, and, like,
paramedics had to come in. And then he refused to engage in trial. It was very disruptive.
It was concerning for us as a team. It was hard for our victims. He wasn't present for a good portion of the trial.
So in order to avoid potential appeals or whatever, because he wasn't allowed to be in court,
the judge said, if he wasn't gonna come out of his cell, that they would wheel a monitor in,
and he'd be forced to watch the trial on monitor. - He did take the stand. And his testimony was primarily talking
about how he was a legitimate film producer, and that this was something that he intended
to put together, he could have made a lot of money from it, and that, you know, he likely would have
been able to sell it to HBO. We thought it was important that the jury know that there was no documentary.
- We brought in HBO to say that never in the history of the universe has there ever been
a documentary that has ever paid anywhere close to that amount of money. Kate Crisham: At that point, the most
HBO had ever paid for documentary was $1 million. And so this $155 million price that Delay was throwing about
was absurd. We also had someone from Ryan Seacrest Productions come in and talk about how they had never
engaged in any discussions with Delay about doing reality TV shows about the victims' lives.
And in fact, there was no relationship with Delay. So I think that was also really important for the jury
to realize that this truly was a scam and a hoax and that there was just simply nothing beyond it.
- I had to take the stand to talk about what I had found on the computers, and his phone,
and the process of going through those things. So the defense spent a lot of time
just trying to nitpick some things, like he couldn't possibly have sent this email or something
because the IP address showed that he was in Washington State when he was really in Florida.
And so I had to explain how that's possible that you can have an IP address that doesn't
show your actual location. And some of those things they tried to trip me up on, which-- you know,
I'm not a forensic expert, but I can explain things to the best of my ability. And then we have a computer forensic expert
that follows me up and helps confirm some of that. Kate Crisham: The victims themselves really told
a very compelling story and were incredibly believable all on their own, but having that digital evidence
just was able to corroborate everything that they had said. It was able to give us the towns and
the cities that the defendant had taken them to, the hotels that he had rented for them.
And having all of that evidence to support what the victims were saying made our job much easier
at trial and, frankly, took a lot of the pressure off of them as well, that it was not all dependent on their testimony.
Natalie D'Amico: When the prosecution rested their case and the jury went off to deliberate,
I couldn't function. I may have looked like I was functioning, but internally, I was not.
You just hope that they see what they're able to see from what could be presented in court
and make the right decision. If that guy walked, if him or Reece walked, I'm not sure if I could have gone back to work.
I just don't know. It would have been so defeating after seeing what they had done to so many people.
Kate Crisham: There are 12 people on that jury, and they all hear the evidence. And the government has a high burden.
It's beyond a reasonable doubt. - The deliberation didn't take more than a few hours.
Kate Crisham: They come in, and then they read the verdict. [suspenseful music] ♪ ♪
- We got back all the guilty verdicts. [gavel hits] Natalie D'Amico: It was a great feeling.
It was surreal-- lots of emotions for the victims, tears, hope and belief that this worked out for them
as they could have only hoped. - It was very gratifying, mainly on behalf of all the victims, to know
that we were going to be able to tell them that the jury had heard them, had heard their story,
and believed them. I think, certainly, all the victims were happy to hear that Delay was being held accountable,
but that comes after a lot of pain and trauma that is still difficult for them, I think, to relive.
- I think sentencing happened a few months after the fact. - The judge handed down one of the largest sentences we've
seen in a very long time in the Western District of Washington-- 33 years in prison.
I do believe that was a fair sentence. Getting over 30 years, especially in the federal system, is significant.
We don't have parole like the state systems do, so David will serve the majority of that time.
For Marysa, we engaged in a plea deal with her. We were originally going to have
her serve as a witness against David, but we decided, given the amount of manipulation
he'd had over her and contact with her in jail, that that was probably not in our best interest.
We didn't feel like she'd be a good witness for us at that point. So she ended up getting, I believe, like, three years
and has been in and out of jail since. She went back to the East Coast, and I kind of check in every now and then
to see how things are going. She was caught communicating with a minor again. And she's violated her parole several times
and has had some other violations, so she has not changed her life in the way that we hoped that she would,
getting out of David's influence. Kate Crisham: I think what made Delay such a potential threat for many years
to come is the fact that he is charming and cunning, and he uses the computer to recruit victims
and to groom them. And so he's someone that, when he gets out of prison, he's still gonna have those tools to use.
Also, the fact that he was really, entirely unremorseful and not taking any responsibility
did not bode well for him changing the trajectory of his life or stepping away from this.
And so he had wreaked such harm on so many people, not just the victims but also their families.
And we feel like we had a real responsibility to the community to make sure that we protect the community
against further crimes by David Delay. - I think when it comes to victims in this particular crime and prostitution, a lot of times,
they're afraid they're not gonna be believed. They feel like law enforcement devalues them
because of what they're doing. And we really wanted to send the message that, you're valuable.
You are important, and your case and your life is important to us. And it doesn't matter where you're coming from.
We don't want people to be exploited and abused. And in this case, David and Marysa
were exploiting these women in a very, very cruel way. So we wanted to show these victims that, yeah,
you can come to us. We'll believe you. You can trust us, and we'll fight for you.
The next him is already out there. If we didn't have a victim come forward in this case,
we wouldn't have known this was going on. So sometimes it's just that. If, you know, one person comes forward,
then it can be investigated, it can be looked at. But if not, it's never known to us.
That's the scary thing. - People think that they can offer their body in that way
and that it's gonna be OK sometimes. And we have found by talking to long-term survivors
that that's not the case. It takes a special toll on a person that they don't anticipate.
Sometimes it seems like quick money, but in the end, every single one of them has said it's not worth it.
[somber music] ♪ ♪

A woman walks into the Redmond police station, bringing with her a harrowing story of betrayal.

This true crime series unmasks the sinister world of scams, examining how perpetrators exploit trust.

For More FilmRise Check Out Our Other Channels: FilmRise Television: https://www.youtube.com/⁨@FilmRiseTelevision⁩ FilmRise Movies: https://www.youtube.com/@FilmRiseMovies Highway to Heaven - Full Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@HighwaytoHeavenFullEpisodes

Brief Summary

David Delay and Marysa Comer exploited women under the pretense of a documentary, leading to a significant human trafficking case and their eventual arrest.

Key points

The Dream Turned Nightmare. Women were lured with promises of wealth through a fake documentary.
The Deceptive Photo. A doctored bank account screenshot reveals the extent of Delay's fraud.
The Calm Criminal. David Delay displayed a shocking calmness during his arrest.
The Arrest at the Airport. Natalie D'Amico recounts the dramatic moment of Delay's return and arrest.
David's Manipulation. David pressures Marysa to take the fall for him, promising to make her famous.
Trial Tensions. David's behavior during the trial raises concerns for the prosecution team.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This was selling a dream that ended up being a nightmare.

Kate Crisham reflects on the deception.

0:40WatchJul 10, 2026

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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