Orange County District Attorney Press Release
For Immediate Release: July 1, 2014
SANTA ANA – The Orange County District Attorney’s Office (OCDA) convicted 11 men in June 2014 of loitering with the intent to commit prostitution or agreeing to engage in prostitution. The defendants in these cases approached a woman, whom they believed to be a prostitute, in areas known for prostitution and human trafficking in Orange County or loitered in areas known for prostitution and human trafficking in Orange County. Some agreed to engage in commercial sex with a woman and were subsequently arrested by law enforcement.
The Santa Ana Police Department and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department investigated these cases. Deputy District Attorneys Eric Eastman and Tina Patel of the HEAT Unit prosecuted these cases.
The defendants below each pleaded guilty to one or two misdemeanor counts each of loitering with the intent to commit prostitution or agreeing to engage in prostitution. The defendants were each sentenced up to three years informal probation, up to 60 days in jail with the possibility of CalTrans in lieu of jail, and some must also submit to AIDS testing and education. Some defendants must also submit to DNA testing and were required to donate up to $150 to the Victim Witness Emergency Fund.
- Rosario Cabrera, 23, Santa Ana
- Heron Carlos, 45, Santa Ana
- Anthony Espinosa. 24, Garden Grove
- Felipe Tovar Galvan, 35, Westminster
- Stephen Joseph Griffith, 64, Canyon Lake
- Eugenio Hernandez, 35, Costa Mesa
- Alfred Lua, 26, Buena Park
- Alejandro Mora, 25, Anaheim
- Phillip Parker, 64, Orange
- Michael Bedros Poochigian, 40, Whittier
Emad Said, 46, Cerritos, was found guilty by a jury on June 3, 2014, of one misdemeanor count of loitering with intent to commit prostitution. He was sentenced June 26, 2014, to 60 days in jail stayed pending completion of 10 days CalTrans, three years informal probation, and must submit to AIDS testing and education.
These cases were prosecuted by the OCDA 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. Commercial sex trafficking is the second most lucrative criminal enterprise behind narcotics trafficking. Often the perpetrators are gang members and/or career criminals.
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.
The OCDA announced in April 2013 that he will publicize the names of defendants convicted of sexually exploiting women or children by soliciting sex acts as part of the campaign to reduce the demand of human exploitation and trafficking.
A press release will be sent out once a month detailing the arrests and convictions of sex purchasers.
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
401 Civic Center Drive West
Santa Ana, CA 92701
Contacts:
Susan Kang Schroeder
Chief of Staff
Office: 714-347-8408
Cell: 714-292-2718
Farrah Emami
Spokesperson
Office: 714-347-8405
Cell: 714-323-4486
