An Ames man is facing 17 charges from a federal grand jury, including 15 counts of sex trafficking by fraud and coercion, the Southern District of Iowa U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Friday.
Carl Markley, a former nurse practitioner in Ames and Ankeny, surrendered his license following an investigation by the Ames Police Department earlier this year.
The 15 counts of sex trafficking from the grand jury each carry a 15-year mandatory minimum and could be as long as a life-sentence.
Markley faces two more charges from the federal grand jury, sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child pornography. Sexual exploitation of a child convictions require a 15-year minimum sentence and a 30-year maximum. Child pornography convictions are a 10-year maximum sentence.
The case is being investigated by the Ames Police Department, the FBI and the Iowa Department of Public Safety’s Division of Criminal Investigation.
Markley has been arrested multiple times for related offenses, including in April, when he was arrested following a search of his Ames home that resulted in a charge of sexual exploitation of a minor.
Until his April arrest, Markley allegedly had been trafficking victims since 2004.
Markley was also arrested and charged in May with human trafficking, pimping and prostitution.
Police allegedly found hidden cameras in pens and a clock and “commercial pornographic videos consisting of doctor models conducting sexual acts with patient models in a clinical setting,” according to a May criminal complaint.
Markley still faces these pimping, prostitution, human trafficking, invasion of privacy and sexual exploitation of a minor charges from the State of Iowa, with a trial scheduled for January.
Before surrendering his nursing license, Markley was charged by the Iowa Board of Nursing with engaging in sex acts with patients, causing injury to patients, failing to safeguard medications, engaging in inappropriate behavior, failing to assess or evaluate patients and failing to comply with a board subpoena, as reported by Iowa Capital Dispatch.
