Redmond Cop Brings Down Puget Sound Sex Trafficker

SEATTLE, WA - A Lynnwood man who forced young women into prostitution by telling them he was a famous HBO producer will spend the next 33 years in jail, according to U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes. David Delay, 52, was found guilty of 17 sex trafficking-related felonies during a November 2017 trial.

The case came to light in November 2014 when a Redmond teen went to police. The teen, who is developmentally delayed, told Redmond Det. Natalie D'Amico a horrific and sinister story about what Delay had done to her and other women.

The teen - identified in court documents as "M.K." - met a woman named Marysa Comer online in early 2014. Over the course of a few months, Comer convinced M.K. to meet her and her boyfriend, Delay, in person. Comer eventually convinced M.K. to move in with her and Delay, and that's when they turned her into a prostitute.

According to court documents, Delay and Comer told M.K. they were making an HBO documentary about sex trafficking. To fund the documentary, they told M.K. she would have to work as a prostitute. In exchange, she would get $20 million once the documentary was complete. They even drew up a phony contract outlining the details.

One night in 2014, Delay and Comer took M.K. to a hotel and put her in a room alone. Eventually, a man entered, handed M.K. $220, and ordered her to have sex with him. From there, Delay and Comer took M.K. to hotel rooms around the country, from Lynnwood to Beaverton, Ore., to Miami to have sex with strangers. Delay arranged the encounters by posting pictures of M.K. on websites like BackPage.com.

If M.K. refused to do what Delay said, according to court documents, he would beat her up.

M.K. told Redmond police Delay was running the same scheme with a slew of young women. In court documents, those women also told police they were promised $20 million for participating in Delay's fake HBO movie.

In November 2014, M.K. decided to get out. She contacted a friend's mother, who picked her up from Delay and Comer's Lynnwood apartment. When M.K.'s captors found out she left, they attempted to blackmail her, threatening to publish explicit photos of M.K. on Facebook if she didn't come back.

M.K. refused, and so Comer and Delay posted nude photos on M.K.'s personal Facebook account. They changed M.K.'s password, so there was nothing she could do to take them down.

Because of D'Amico's investigation, police in were able to get a search warrant for Comer and Delay's apartment. Inside, they found hundreds of hotel room keys, plus copies of the fake contracts that promised the young women $20 million for participating in the nonexistent HBO documentary.

Comer and Delay were indicted in mid-2015 in federal court on charges ranging from conspiracy to transport women for prostitution to sex trafficking through force, fraud, or coercion.

Comer, 23, was sentenced in December to three years in prison. She pleaded guilty in 2015 to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking.

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