People v. Clark CA2/3

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

1. The four victims a. Wendy S. In 2014, when she was 14, Wendy ran away from her group home and started working as a commercial sex worker. In the spring of 2015, Wendy met Clark, whom she knew as “P.C.” Clark told Wendy “he had a girl working for him” and Wendy could make up to $1,500 a day. Richmond, whom Wendy knew as “J.J.,” contacted her on Facebook or by text. Richmond was Clark’s “baby mother.” Richmond asked, “[O]h, can I pull up on you and we’ll smoke?” Wendy agreed. The next day, Wendy and her friend called Clark to pick them up. Clark picked her up, they “got drunk and . . . smoked,” and then Clark took her to Los Angeles “to go on the blade.”1 Wendy worked about 10 hours that night. Clark “felt like he needed more money.” He told Wendy, “[Y]ou’re not leaving. You have to stay and have to make more money.” This pattern continued. Sometimes Wendy took “pills just trying to stay up.” Wendy gave the money she made to Clark “immediately”; she kept none of it.

The “blade” or the “track” is “the streets where prostitutes walk on,” such as Figueroa in Los Angeles.

2 Clark began to rent rooms at the E-Z8 motels in Lancaster and…