Man sentenced after burning a teenager and forcing her into prostitution

ORANGE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY PRESS RELEASE

Case # 15WF1519

Date: October 8, 2015

MAN SENTENCED TO SIX YEARS IN PRISON FOR TRAFFICKING AND ASSAULTING TEENAGE WOMAN BY BURNING HER WITH BLOW TORCH IN ATTEMPT TO FORCE HER TO WORK AS PROSTITUTE

WESTMINSTER, Calif. – A man was sentenced to six years in state prison today for trafficking an 18-year-old woman and physically assaulting her, including burning her leg with a blow torch, and attempting to force her to work as a prostitute for his benefit. Richard Jordan Sandoval, 24, Garden Grove, pleaded guilty today, Oct. 8, 2015, to one felony count of assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury, one felony count of domestic battery with corporal injury, one felony count of false imprisonment by menace, violence, fraud, or deceit, one felony count of human trafficking, and one felony count of criminal threats.

Circumstances of the Case

Sandoval is a human trafficker who exploits women for financial gain.

At the time of the crimes, the defendant was in a romantic relationship with Jane Doe. On July 8, 2015, Sandoval physically assaulted Jane Doe with force likely to produce great bodily injury, and the victim attempted to run away from the defendant. Sandoval followed Jane Doe in a vehicle and threatened her with violence if she did not get inside. When Jane Doe entered the vehicle, Sandoval physically assaulted her again.

On July 9, 2015, Sandoval drove Jane Doe to a hotel in Garden Grove with the intent to force her to engage in commercial sex. Sandoval physically attacked the victim, burned her leg with a blow torch, and threatened to kill her if she did not comply with his demands. The Garden Grove Police Department (GGPD) was contacted and arrived at the scene and arrested the defendant. At the time of Sandoval’s arrest, the defendant had scales, empty plastic bags, a large amount of cocaine, and a blow torch inside his vehicle.

Members of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force (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 GGPD and OCHTTF, a partnership between the Anaheim Police Department, California Highway Patrol, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Huntington Beach Police Department, OCDA, Orange County Sheriff’s Department, and community and non-profit partners.

Deputy District Attorney Bryan Clavecilla of the HEAT Unit prosecuted 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.

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TONY RACKAUCKAS, District Attorney

Susan Kang Schroeder, Chief of Staff
Office: 714-347-8408
Cell: 714-292-2718