A Rogersville man described by a federal prosecutor as the ringleader of a million-dollar catalytic converter theft ring will serve over five years in federal prison.
Evan B. Marshall, 25, apologized Monday in U.S. District Court for profiting from the sales of thousands of catalytic converters over a two-year period. During that time, his resale business flourished thanks in part to a network of thieves who sold the auto parts, valuable for their precious minerals, to Marshall or to one of several middlemen working for him.
Marshall also must pay a $750,000 penalty and over $19,000 in restitution after pleading guilty to scheming to defraud as part of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors that resulted in two firearms-related charges and one charge of conspiring to defraud the United States being dropped.
Marshall was arrested in October 2021 following a multi-agency investigation into the rising number of catalytic converter thefts being reported in Greene County and the surrounding area. The investigation resulted in the arrests of several people who have since pled guilty to selling stolen converters to Marshall or middlemen employed by him.
On Monday, the two middlemen received sentences of five years probation and about two-and-a-half years in prison, respectively, from U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool, who also presided over Marshall's sentencing.
Both Marshall’s defense attorney and the federal prosecutor said Marshall deserved prison time for his actions. Nancy Price, Marshall’s attorney, asked for 36 months, pointing to three rows of family in attendance and saying he had ample support and reason to turn his life around. Federal prosecutor Shannon Kempf said Marshall deserved 70 months for controlling the money that fueled a theft ring that plagued the region.
In sentencing Marshall to 70 months, Harpool said Marshall took a shortcut to gain wealth by depriving others of their property, and in the process helped fuel the drug addiction habits of thieves he paid for valuable stolen property.
At sentencing, Marshall says greed led him astray
Holding a written statement in his handcuffed hands, Marshall only referenced it on occasion while speaking directly to Harpool and turning at times to his family.
He said he started his business as a way to make a better life for his family — his infant daughter was one of several dozen people seated filling three rows on the defendant’s side of the courtroom on Monday. At first, as court records have stated and Marshall and his attorney affirmed, Marshall began buying catalytic converters scrapped from junk vehicles — and selling them to a company in Arkansas.
Court records state Marshall entered into an exclusive sales agreement in the fall of 2019 to sell the converters, and that Marshall started buying detached converters from scrap yards and individuals. For his efforts, the Arkansas company was wiring him hundreds of thousands of dollars on a monthly basis to make the buys. Those buys, local law enforcement officers would discover, included purchases of stolen converters.
Marshall said as he started to make a profit, he “made horrible decisions fueled by my greed,” and later added that those decisions did not reflect the kind of person he wanted his family members to think he was.
Prosecutor says nature of secondary market makes it impossible to ID victims
Kempf, a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Springfield, said law enforcement officials could only identify a fraction of the victims, which he said included a nonprofit and an area church. (He did not identify any of the victims by name.) The identified victims, all parties agreed, deserved to be compensated before the government collects on a financial judgment of $750,000, a penalty Harpool said Marshall would likely be repaying for most of his life.
But first, the known victims would collect $19,133.61 owed to them from Marshall.
Kempf said the list of known victims was so small because catalytic converters don’t include unique identifications, like a car’s VIN. They are valuable because they include a set of precious metals — most commonly platinum, rhodium, and palladium — that Car and Driver reports have skyrocketed in value as global supply chains have slowed. Since the stolen catalytic converters are destroyed in the process of extracting the valuable metals, Kempf said he could only guess as to how many people across Southwest Missouri and the surrounding area discovered they had been victimized.
In court, Kempf said he imagined that most victims woke up one morning, went about their routines and headed to their vehicles to go to work or take their kids to school. Then they started the engine and instantly heard something was wrong. The crime disrupted the routines of law-abiding citizens, he said, and disproportionately affected people of lesser means who could be hamstrung by a thousand-dollar car problem.
Marshall said during his remarks to Harpool that from his position as the purchaser and dealer of the stolen catalytic converters, he never saw what victims had to go through.
He said if he were in their shoes, “I would be furious.”
Instead, he is preparing to serve a 70-month federal prison term. Marshall has been in custody since his October arrest and will get credit for time served.
“To all the victims I’ll never know and never meet, I offer my sincere apologies,” he said.
Middlemen sentenced to probation, prison
As Marshall bought and sold more converters, investigators have said, he brought in people to help with acquisitions. Those two, Cameron J. Davis, 25, and Cody Ryder, 31, also were sentenced on Monday. Davis was given five years probation after pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud. Ryder was sentenced to 29 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to the same felony count.
Davis was hired by Marshall in late 2019 to buy catalytic converters with cash Marshall gave him. He would later admit to investigators that he bought no less than 1,500 stolen converters during his time working for Marshall, paying thieves about $250,000.
At his sentencing, Davis said he didn’t know at first that he was buying stolen catalytic converters from people, but he continued to work for Marshall after learning that he had been. His attorney, Shane Cantin, said Davis wanted to extract himself from the operation, but didn’t know how to. He did, however, cooperate with law enforcement, Cantin said, a fact that was acknowledged by both Kempf and Harpool.
Along with the probation sentence, Harpool ordered Davis to pay a $125,000 penalty as part of his sentence and said society would best be served with Davis repaying the debt he owed while on probation. Others, he said, would pay a higher price for their conduct.
Ryder, who investigators say was hired in early 2021 to buy catalytic converters on Marshall’s behalf, was sentenced by Harpool Monday afternoon. He will also have to pay a $125,000 judgment.
