| For Immediate Release Case # 14CF0615 February 19, 2014 |
Susan Kang Schroeder Chief of Staff Office: 714-347-8408 Cell: 714-292-2718 Farrah Emami
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PIMP TO BE ARRAIGNED FOR THREATENING WOMAN AND HAVING HER PERFORM COMMERCIAL SEX ACTS FOR HIS BENEFIT
SANTA ANA – A pimp is scheduled to be arraigned today for threatening a woman and having her perform commercial sex acts for his benefit. Rickey Lovelle Ward Jr., 30, Anaheim, is charged with one felony count each of pimping, pandering by procuring, and criminal threats. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of six years and eight months in state prison. He is scheduled to be arraigned today in Department CJ-1, Central Jail, Santa Ana. The time is to be determined.
Circumstances of the Case
Ward is accused of being a pimp who exploits women and/or children for financial gain. Pimps often establish rigid rules that their victims are expected to follow. The victims are required to turn over all payment they receive for sex acts from sex purchasers to their pimp. Failure to follow these rules may result in physical and/or emotional abuse.
Between Feb. 2, 2014, and Feb. 16, 2014, Ward is accused of pimping out 23-year-old Jane Doe to sex purchasers and collecting the money she received from performing commercial sex acts. At approximately 10:45 p.m. on Feb. 16, 2014, Ward is accused of dropping off Jane Doe in Santa Ana in an area known for prostitution. Jane Doe agreed to perform a commercial sex act with undercover Santa Ana Police Department (SAPD) and was taken into custody.
While Jane Doe was in custody, Ward is accused of sending text messages to Jane Doe threatening to shoot her mother if she continues ignoring his phone calls. He is accused of causing Jane Doe to reasonably be in fear for her safety and the safety of her immediate family with his threats. SAPD arrested Ward at a nearby location.
This case was investigated by SAPD and Deputy District Attorney Bradley Schoenleben 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.
The Orange County District Attorney’s Human Exploitation And Trafficking (HEAT) Unit 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.