Judge hands down maximum prison sentence in Sacramento County human trafficking case
A Sacramento Superior Court judge has sentenced a 36-year-old man to 40 years in prison for forcing a victim into prostitution, including performing sex acts in a parking lot to humiliate her in front of his friends, prosecutors said.
Judge Steve White on Friday handed down the maximum prison sentence for Kenneth Hawkins, the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release Monday. A jury on Sept. 17 found Hawkins guilty of human trafficking, pimping and pandering.
On March 1, a witness told the Sacramento Police Department that Hawkins was forcing the victim to perform oral sex on another man in a parking lot on Franklin Boulevard, according to prosecutors.
When police found Hawkins and the victim, the woman told officers that Hawkins had been forcing her to engage in prostitution, prosecutors said.
Hawkins was angry at her on that day, the victim also told police, and he humiliated her by forcing her to perform oral sex on another man in the parking lot as Hawkins’ friends stood by and taunted her, according to the news release.
Prosecutors said Hawkins’ friends recorded a portion of that sex act and posted the video on social media. Officers later found the video, along with security video that corroborated the statements from the victim and the witness who called police, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Hawkins remained in custody at the Sacramento County Jail Monday afternoon awaiting transfer to prison.
