Man who took women, forced them into sex work, faces life after Sacramento verdict
Sacramento County jurors on Tuesday convicted a man who held two women in his Elk Grove apartment in 2024, drugging the pair and forcing them into prostitution, on charges including kidnapping, rape and other offenses in Sacramento Superior Court.
Frank Rathel Hicks, 43, faces 87 years to life in prison at his scheduled Jan. 23 sentencing before Sacramento Superior Court Judge Ben Galloway, the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement. Hicks remains held without bail in Sacramento County Main Jail awaiting sentencing.
Jurors found Hicks guilty of a long list of sex trafficking-related charges: two counts each of kidnapping; human trafficking with a firearm; pimping; pandering; forcible rape; and forcible oral copulation. Jurors also found Hicks guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm and possessing a controlled substance with a loaded firearm.
Judge Galloway also ruled that Hicks had a prior strike conviction, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors said Hicks took one of the women at gunpoint in Stockton and forced her to his apartment where he drugged her with fentanyl, forced her to drink alcohol, then sent her to perform sex work in Stockton and Oakland and send money back to Hicks. The woman was kept in the apartment for 10 days, where Hicks forced her to have sex with him, before she fled April 25, 2024, and found Elk Grove police, prosecutors said. The woman fled believing Hicks would kill her if didn’t escape, D.A.’s officials said.
Elk Grove police later found a second woman in the apartment. The woman told officers Hicks had held her captive for a month, drugging her and forcing her into sex work. Both women said Hicks, armed with a gun and knife, threatened to kill both if they tried to flee.
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