Case # 12NF2853
Date: April 13, 2016
MAN CONVICTED OF PIMPING AND PANDERING TWO WOMEN IN ANAHEIM MOTEL
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. – A man was convicted yesterday of pimping and pandering two women in an Anaheim motel. Dorral Lee Hicks Jr., 27, Yuba, pleaded guilty to the court yesterday April 12, 2016, over the objection by the People, to two felony counts of pimping and two felony counts of pandering by procuring. He is expected to be sentenced to three years in state prison at his sentencing June 20, 2016, at 8:30 a.m. in Department H-5, Harbor Justice Center, Newport Beach.
Circumstances of the Case
Hicks is a pimp who exploits women for financial gain. Victims are often required to turn over all payment they receive for sex acts from sex purchasers to their pimp.
On Aug. 28, 2012, Hicks booked a motel room in Anaheim and monitored two women who he had recruited to work for him as commercial sex workers. Members of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force (OCHTTF) conducted surveillance around the motel. The defendant parked his BMW across from the street from the motel and drove up to meet with Jane Doe 2 and accepted cash from the victim after she had spent several minutes with a man in the motel room.
An undercover officer met with Jane Doe 1 and agreed to engage in a commercial sex act with the victim. OCHTTF subsequently arrested the defendant. Further investigation by OCHTTF revealed evidence of the defendant’s manipulation of Jane Doe 1 which included text messages encouraging the victim to engage in commercial sex despite suffering from pain in the vaginal area and dissuading her from seeking medical attention.
Other evidence showed the defendant and victim went to a tattoo parlor in Anaheim. The defendant described himself as Jane Doe 1’s manager to the tattoo artist. Pimps often use tattoos as a way of branding women indicating ownership by a trafficker/pimp. Jane Doe 1 got a tattoo on her face and the defendant told the tattoo artist that she was going to make a lot of money.
Members of OCHTTF and the Orange County District Attorney’s (OCDA) Office work proactively to protect women and minors from falling victim to commercial sexual exploitation. This case was investigated by OCHTTF, a partnership between Anaheim Police Department, California Highway Patrol, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Huntington Beach Police Department, Irvine Police Department, OCDA, Orange County Sheriff’s Department, Santa Ana Police Department, and community and non-profit partners.
Deputy District Attorney Daniel Varon of the HEAT Unit is prosecuting this case.
Proposition 35 and HEAT
In November 2012, California’s anti-human trafficking Proposition 35 (Prop 35) was enacted in California with 81 percent of the vote, and over 82 percent of the vote in Orange County, to increase the penalty for human trafficking, particularly in cases involving the trafficking of a minor by force.
A component of the OCHTTF is the OCDA’s Human Exploitation And Trafficking (HEAT) Unit, which targets perpetrators who sexually exploit and traffic women and underage girls for financial gain, including pimps, panderers, and human traffickers. The HEAT Unit uses a tactical plan called PERP: Prosecution, to bring justice for victims of human trafficking and hold perpetrators responsible using Prop 35; Education, to provide law enforcement training to properly handle human trafficking and pandering cases; Resources from public-private partnerships to raise public awareness about human trafficking and provide assistance to the victims; and Publicity, to inform the public and send a message to human traffickers that this crime cannot be perpetrated without suffering severe consequences.
Under the law, human trafficking is described as depriving or violating the personal liberty of another person with the intent to effect a violation of pimping or pandering. Pimping is described as knowingly deriving financial support in whole or in part from the proceeds of prostitution. Pandering is the act of persuading or procuring an individual to become a prostitute, or procuring and/or arranging for a person work in a house of prostitution.
Penal Code Section 236.1 defines:
(1) “Coercion” includes any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process; debt bondage; or providing and facilitating the possession of any controlled substance to a person with the intent to impair the person’s judgment.
(2) “Commercial sex act” means sexual conduct on account of which anything of value is given or received by any person.
(3) “Deprivation or violation of the personal liberty of another” includes substantial and sustained restriction of another’s liberty accomplished through force, fear, fraud, deceit, coercion, violence, duress, menace, or threat of unlawful injury to the victim or to another person, under circumstances where the person receiving or apprehending the threat reasonably believes that it is likely that the person making the threat would carry it out.
(4) “Duress” includes a direct or implied threat of force, violence, danger, hardship, or retribution sufficient to cause a reasonable person to acquiesce in or perform an act which he or she would otherwise not have submitted to or performed; a direct or implied threat to destroy, conceal, remove, confiscate, or possess any actual or purported passport or immigration document of the victim; or knowingly destroying, concealing, removing, confiscating, or possessing any actual or purported passport or immigration document of the victim.
(5) “Forced labor or services” means labor or services that are performed or provided by a person and are obtained or maintained through force, fraud, duress, or coercion, or equivalent conduct that would reasonably overbear the will of the person.
(6) “Great bodily injury” means a significant or substantial physical injury.
(7) “Minor” means a person less than 18 years of age.
(8) “Serious harm” includes any harm, whether physical or nonphysical, including psychological, financial, or reputational harm, that is sufficiently serious, under all the surrounding circumstances, to compel a reasonable person of the same background and in the same circumstances to perform or to continue performing labor, services, or commercial sexual acts in order to avoid incurring that harm.
(i) The total circumstances, including the age of the victim, the relationship between the victim and the trafficker or agents of the trafficker, and any handicap or disability of the victim, shall be factors to consider in determining the presence of “deprivation or violation of the personal liberty of another,” “duress,” and “coercion” as described in this section.