Man suspected of sexually assaulting 14 prostitutes is charged

A 35-year-old security guard suspected of sexually assaulting 14 women who worked as prostitutes has been charged with kidnapping and robbery after his latest victim escaped and alerted police, authorities said Wednesday.

Ferdinand Flowers of Long Beach was arrested Jan. 12 by Los Angeles police officers in the 600 block of West Victoria Street near Compton, said LAPD Deputy Chief Justin Eisenberg.

Flowers had picked up a victim near Long Beach Boulevard and Palm Avenue in the “early morning hours,” police said. He then allegedly drove her to a street in Rancho Dominguez and pointed a gun at her.

After robbing the victim, Flowers attempted to force the woman to perform a sex act, but she fought back and escaped from the car around 1:30 a.m., police said. LAPD detectives, who were already in the area as part of the investigation into the series of sexual assaults, immediately arrested Flowers.

Flowers was charged with kidnapping with intent to commit rape, assault with intent to commit rape and robbery in the Jan. 12 attack, according to a news release issued by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. He pleaded not guilty Wednesday and is due back in court Feb. 15. He faces up to life in prison if convicted, according to prosecutors.

He has yet to be charged in the other attacks, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office said.

Investigators said Flowers’ alleged attacks began in January 2014. All of his victims were black women who worked as prostitutes, according to Capt. Billy Hayes of the LAPD’s elite Robbery-Homicide Division. Six of the victims were attacked in Los Angeles, and eight were assaulted in other parts of Los Angeles County, according to Eisenberg. Authorities believe more victims are likely to come forward.

“I need to stress that we still have much more investigative work to do on these cases, but we believe we have the right predator off the streets who committed these horrific crimes,” Eisenberg said.

In each attack, police said, Flowers would drive to an area known for prostitution and solicit a woman. Once the victims entered his car, Flowers would hold them at gunpoint, drive to a remote industrial area and force them to perform a sex act, Hayes said.

Flowers routinely released the women in the same area, a habit that ultimately helped lead to his arrest last week, investigators said.

Hayes said Flowers may have targeted women working as prostitutes because they were “vulnerable victims and that was what he was going after with the sex acts.”

His youngest victim was 15, Hayes said.

Flowers’ photograph was not released so that other victims can make a positive identification without being influenced, Hayes said.

Investigators believe Flowers was involved in four sexual assaults in 2014. He has not been linked to any assaults committed in 2015 or 2016, but police said they doubt Flowers was dormant those years.

“It would seem the behavior wouldn’t just cease like that,” Hayes said.

Investigators began to notice a pattern of assaults in May last year, when detectives linked DNA from an attack that began in South L.A. to evidence related to the January 2014 assault.

Many of the attacks happened along Western Avenue in South L.A. or on a stretch of Alameda Street in an unincorporated part of the county near South L.A., police have said. Flowers threatened to hurt the women if they did not cooperate, Hayes said. In one case, he struck a woman who tried to refuse.

He is being held in lieu of $1.25 million bail, according to jail records. Hayes said Flowers was a licensed security guard who worked for a firm that provided security at “various sites” throughout Los Angeles County. He was licensed to carry a firearm, and police recovered a .40-caliber handgun during a search of his home.

Flowers first became licensed in 2003, according to Department of Consumer Affairs records. He was previously arrested for soliciting a prostitute in Los Angeles in 2010, police said.

Times staff writers Kate Mather and Richard Winton contributed to this report.

james.queally@latimes.com

Follow @JamesQueallyLAT for crime and police news in California.

UPDATES:

6 p.m.: This article was updated with the identity of the suspect and additional details about the attacks.

1:40 p.m.: This article was updated with confirmation from an additional source and additional background on the case.

This article was originally published at 12:45 p.m.