ORANGE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY PRESS RELEASE
Case # 14NF2910
Date: October 30, 2015
SANTA ANA, Calif. – A man was sentenced today to 19 years and four months in state prison and mandatory lifetime sex offender registration for having unlawful sexual intercourse with four underage girls, providing them with drugs and trafficking three of the victims. Daryl Anthony Hicks, 57, Midway City, was found guilty by a jury Oct. 7, 2015, of three felony counts of human trafficking of a minor, four felony counts of unlawful sexual intercourse, one felony count of possession of a firearm by a felon, three felony counts of furnishing a controlled substance to a minor, and one misdemeanor count of possession of a controlled substance.
Circumstances of the Case
Between February 2014 and July 2014, Hicks met 16-year-old Jane Doe 1 and 17-year-old Jane Doe 2 in Santa Ana. Hicks knew the victims were minors and gave them methamphetamine on multiple occasions, paid Jane Doe 2 to undress and took illegal nude photographs of her, and paid the victims for sex on multiple occasions.
Sometime between February 2014, and July 2014, Hicks met 16-year-old Jane Doe 3 and 17-year-old Jane Doe 4, who were acquainted with Jane Doe 2. He paid Jane Doe 3 and Jane Doe 4 to have unlawful sexual intercourse with him despite knowing their age and paid them to undress and took illegal nude photographs of them. The defendant gave methamphetamine to Jane Doe 3 and cocaine to Jane Doe 4.
On July 9, 2014, three of the victims reported the crime to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD). The Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force (OCHTTF) and the Orange County Child Exploitation Task Force investigated this case. On July 10, 2014, the Anaheim Police Department (APD) arrested the defendant. During the investigation by OCHTTF, investigators recovered three firearms that belonged to Hicks and cocaine in his apartment.
Members 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 APD, California Highway Patrol, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Huntington Beach Police Department, Irvine Police Department, OCDA, OCSD, 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
