The Other McCain

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Married Gay Couple Lured Teen Boys in Florida ‘Sex Slave’ Ring, Police Say

Posted on | January 25, 2019 | Comments Off on Married Gay Couple Lured Teen Boys in Florida ‘Sex Slave’ Ring, Police Say

Police arrested Mark Dennis (left) and his husband Andrew (right).

In 2017, a 15-year-old boy disappeared from Marion County, Florida, and was not found until nearly a year later. In May 2018, acting on a tip about another missing boy, a 17-year-old from Louisiana, police in St. Petersburg went to a rundown mobile home park and found that both teenagers were living with a married gay couple, Mark and Andrew Dennis, and two other men, Curtis Gruwell and Michael Schwartz. It took several more months of investigation for police to gather the evidence necessary to charge the Dennises, Gruwell, Schwartz and three other suspects with what prosectuors describe as a human trafficking ring:

“The teenage victim in this case was lured with promises of a better life,” Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said at a press conference [Jan. 14]. “Instead, he was moved into a filthy trailer and used as a sex slave for nearly a year.”
The investigation began on May 9, 2018 after Louisiana officials contacted police in St. Petersburg with information about another missing boy, 17, who they believed had been lured through the online gaming app Discord.
According to police, the suspects used it to communicate with the teen, who they picked up and drove to St. Petersburg.
When investigators went to a mobile home in North St. Petersburg where Louisiana authorities said he was, they found both teens living in the trailer with four men, Mark Earl Dennis, Andrew Barry Dennis, Curtis Lee Gruwell and Michael Wayne Schwartz.
Dennis initially told authorities he was the 16-year-old’s father, which turned out to be false, police said.
The 16-year-old, from Marion County, Florida, was 15 when he disappeared. Police say his family found a note from their son saying not to look for him. Investigators now believe one of the suspects, Eleanor Faye McGlamory, had befriended the boy and lured him to the trailer.
“For the next year, he was introduced to sadomasochism and used as a sex slave by Mark and Andrew Dennis, Gruwell, Schwartz and their associates, Michael Ray Blasdel and JR Gauthier,” police said in a news release. During the time he was held in the mobile home he did not attend school and wasn’t given medical treatment, according to police.
All seven face charges of conspiracy to commit human trafficking and interference with custody. Mark Earl Dennis, Andrew Barry Dennis, Michael Ray Blasdel and JR Gauthier also face charges of sexual battery with a child under age 16.

St. Petersburg police at a Jan. 14 press conference.

More background from the Tampa Bay Times:

The group met both boys through video games, primarily communicating through the messaging app Discord.
The Louisiana boy told the Dennises he was on the verge of a breakdown and needed to get away from school and his parents, according to copies of messages included in the complaint.
“I would like to run away to y’all since I know y’all are great people that love to help others,” he wrote in May.
Gruwell and McGlamory drove to Louisiana to pick him up. The Dennises, under the username “BeenUsedAgainNOMORE,” told the teen he’d have to get out of the car and walk across state lines.
“We would get a felony charge otherwise,” one of them told him.
The Marion County boy also came from a vulnerable place. He had come out as gay to his mother, who didn’t take it well, according to the complaint. In February 2017, he started confiding in McGlamory. She offered to take him to a gay wedding to show him a more positive experience.
The wedding, the complaint says, was between Mark Dennis and Andrew Clements, who took his husband’s last name. It was on April 22, 2017, at the Flamingo Resort in St. Petersburg.
Over the next month and a half, McGlamory and the newlyweds concocted a plan to move the teen in with the Dennises. . . .
In St. Petersburg, the boy lived with the Dennises, Gruwell and Schwartz. They, along with Blasdel, were part of what they called a “family circle.” Gauthier was Blasdel’s boyfriend.
The Dennises, Gauthier and Blasdel performed sex acts on the boy, with Mark Dennis as the dominant figure according to the complaint. Gruwell and Schwartz watched but didn’t intervene, the document says.
In May, the boy confided in Blasdel that he was tired of being a sex toy for the men, according to the complaint. He said he was embarrassed and “tired of it from day one and still annoyed,” according to copies of their Discord messages in the complaint.
“I’m sorry hun,” Blasdel wrote, “but you have to communicate when something is bothering you or we don’t know.”

CNN sent a camera crew to Florida for Roger Stone’s arrest, but they haven’t covered this Florida story. Just “local news,” I guess.

(Hat-tip: Kirby McCain.)




 

 

Category: Crime, Florida, Gays

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