(Credit: Austin Fire Department)
On Thursday, a Travis County jury handed down sentences for former Austin Fire Department investigator Marcus Reed after finding him guilty this week of the felony charge of aggravated perjury and the misdemeanor offense of official oppression.
The jury gave Reed the maximum jail term of one year on the official oppression charge, as well as a $2,000 fine. For the felony charge, the jury also gave him the maximum of ten years, but determined that he should receive probation. They also assessed a $10,000 fine. Judge David Wahlberg will determine the length of that probation at the sentencing hearing on September 26, 2019.
The official oppression case arose from an encounter Reed had with the victim, who is using the pseudonym Sarah Johnson, in March of 2017. After that encounter, which happened when Reed was on duty, he sent her more than thirty text messages, some of an explicitly sexual nature. The aggravated perjury charge was brought after Reed testified before a grand jury about that incident, falsely denying under oath that he’d made contact with Sarah Johnson after their encounter, in fact falsely denying that he’d even tried to contact her.
On Wednesday, when the guilty verdicts were decided, the jury announced it was unable to reach a verdict on two other counts of official oppression, and on two counts of sexual assault. Judge Wahlberg declared a mistrial as to those, and our office will be able to retry them in the near future.
At the sentencing hearing, the jurors heard additional evidence that Reed had made the then-13-year-old daughter of his girlfriend sit on his lap, and tucked money into the waistband of her shorts as he kissed her and touched her breasts. The girl, now 16 years old, testified that Reed also slid his hand up her bare leg, under her shorts, and touched her vagina over her underwear.
Lead prosecutor Mark Pryor said: “We are grateful to the jurors for their hard work on this long and complicated case. Our thanks also go to the Special Investigations Unit at the Austin Police Department, especially Detective Billy Parks, who investigated the allegations diligently and helped us present it at trial. Our entire office is especially proud of the two young women who testified about what they experienced, showing dignity and great composure in the most difficult of circumstances.”
