Marshall County Jury Convicts Man in Undercover Child Predator Sting
After about 30 minutes of deliberation this afternoon, a Marshall County Jury returned guilty verdicts against Mario Antonio Rocha-Placensia for Traveling to Meet who he believed to be a Child for an Unlawful Sex Act, a Class A Felony, and Electronic Solicitation of who he believed to be a Child, a Class B Felony, after a two day trial. District Attorney Jennifer Bray and Asst. District Attorney Adam Culbert argued the case to the jury.
Judge Chris Abel presided over the trial and set sentencing for August 4th at 9 am. Mr. Rocha-Placensia will be held in jail with no bond until sentencing. Judge Abel will decide his sentence from a range of 10-99 years or life on the Class A conviction and 2-20 years on the Class B conviction.
Mr. Rocha-Placensia was arrested on February 23rd, 2024, in an undercover sting operation done by the Albertville-AL Police Department in conjunction with the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office, Marshall County Drug Task Force, and our office, along with several federal law enforcement partner agencies. The operation was carried out with the critical help of the non-profit agency, Covenant Rescue Group.
DA Bray said the following:
“I send my sincere thank you to all the agencies who made this operation successful including law enforcement and CRG. It’s only because of their professional and thorough work, that we were able to convict the defendant of his crimes so decisively and quickly. I especially thank CRG for their tireless and continuous effort to equip law enforcement with the tools it needs to take child predators off our streets.
I want to say a special thank you to ADA Culbert, ADA Riley Chandler, our Chief Investigator Josh Gaskin, our Asst. Chief Investigator Jimmy Miller, and Albertville Police Department’s Chief Detective Eric Farmer for their assistance during trial this week.”
She continued, “although an actual child was never involved in this operation, ADA Culbert said it best to the jury when he said ‘think to yourselves what would have happened if a 15-year-old girl had opened that door instead of law enforcement.’”