WARNING: This article contains details of sexual abuse and violence.
An agreed statement of facts outlines the ways a former St. John’s volleyball coach and teacher used dozens of social media accounts to lure young men to his home and sexually assault them.
Markus Hicks, who is in his 30s, pled guilty to 54 charges in a St. John’s courtroom on Monday. They include 13 counts of sexual assault, six counts of luring a child, using a disguise, possessing and accessing child pornography, sexual exploitation and breach of trust.
In the agreed statement of facts between the Crown and Hicks’ legal counsel, police began investigating Hicks in August 2023, when a man reported his son had accepted offers for oral sex from an account on Snapchat at the address of Hicks’ home.
A search warrant was executed on Aug. 31, which found several computers, phones and a curtain setup.
The phones had 24 different social media accounts between them, all believed to be connected to Hicks, which were used to send and receive nude photos and videos from young men. Police also found an app on the devices that allowed the user to alter their voice and sound like a woman.
With the help of the Integrated Internet Child Exploitation Unit, over 34,000 and 11,400 videos showing potential child sexual abuse were found across the devices.
Two videos in particular that were recorded using Snapchat showed Hicks as the camera operator, the statement of fact said. Police were able to verify that some of the individuals in the videos were under 18 at the time they were taken.
The people who came forward to speak with police about their experiences with Hicks can’t be named due to a publication ban.
However, many of them were students or individuals who trusted Hicks, who was in a position of power as a teacher, volleyball coach or referee.
Many of the 17 testimonies in the agreed statement of facts first interacted with Hicks through a Snapchat account under the name ‘Isabella Ricci’, who told the men she was a 19-year-old student at Memorial University from Italy. The account often sent unsolicited nude photos while also frequently requesting them.
When the young men interacting with the account questioned whether or not she was a real person, the account would send a picture of a woman holding a piece of paper with the victim’s name on it.
When one person questioned her identity further, the account sent a photo of Hicks and the woman sitting together. Hicks would tell the men he was her tutor, the statement of fact said.
The woman in the photo also testified to police, telling them she met Hicks when he coached volleyball in Scotland. Hicks had asked her to send him a photo of her holding a blank piece of paper for a video project Hicks said he was working on, the woman said.
Police found 23 photos from her Instagram account saved on phones connected to Hicks.
Other names were also used on accounts connected to Hicks, like Corrine Smith and Brittany Campbell.
The victims told police most sexual encounters started the same way, the statement said. The process involved parking away from Hicks’ split-end home, coming through an unlocked door and receiving oral sex through a curtain hung over a doorway.
Those who testified said hands could also be seen through the hole, and some returned multiple times. All victims said they had consented to sex with the woman they were messaging with — and not with Hicks.
One instance showed Hicks used multiple accounts pretending to be different women at the same time to lure a 16-year-old boy to his home in Paradise.
Police say there are as many as 35 complainants, who range in age from as young as 12 to adults at the time of the offences.
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