Man Pleads No Contest in Rape Case

A Redondo Beach man arrested in October 2009 on suspicion of drugging, raping and shaving the body hair of an acquaintance pleaded no contest to a single charge in Torrance court Tuesday, the Daily Breeze reported.

John Haig Marshall, 56, will serve three years in prison for one charge of penetration of an intoxicated man. He is scheduled to be sentenced in January 2012.

According to the Daily Breeze, Marshall entered the plea against the wishes of his attorney. The case was scheduled to go to trial next week.

"A no-contest [plea] doesn't mean you did it," Marshall's attorney Jeffrey Gray, told Daily Breeze reporter Larry Altman. "He just felt it was in his best interest."

Gray has repeatedly maintained that the shower during which the victim was allegedly assaulted was consensual, and there was no sexual penetration involved, according to a KTLA report from early this year.

Marshall, who served a 9-month stint as a reserve officer in the Redondo Beach Police Department at the beginning of the 1980s, was released on bail shortly after his arrest in 2009, police said. The Daily Breeze reported that he was charged in the case at the end of 2010 and arrested on Jan. 1, 2011.

"Police have received information on several occasions over the past 10 years alleging that Marshall has been involved in drugging and sexually abusing other male victims spanning across the last 30 years," police Lt. Joe Hoffman wrote in a news release sent shortly after Marshall's arrest.

No charges were filed in relation to those allegations, Hoffman said.