A Mountain View man — already charged with drugging and sexually assaulting men he encountered at bars and his home-based barber business — is accused in court documents of incapacitating his victims by spiking their drinks or knocking them out with chemicals in methods that evoke tropes from old kidnapping and spy movies.
Nineteen men have separately alleged that 35-year-old Franklin Enrique Sarceno Orla assaulted them, with many describing how they awoke to the nightmarish scene of being immobilized while Sarceno Orla sexually penetrated or orally copulated them.
Others recounted waking up nude or partially clothed, often at his apartment, with the defendant telling them that they drank too much and undressed themselves. They uniformly discovered clear signs — such as bleeding and the inexplicable presence of bodily fluids — that they had been sexually violated, sometimes confirmed after medical examinations.
Even after Sarceno Orla was first arrested and charged in August 2024 with sexually assaulting a man earlier that summer, he apparently was not finished, according to prosecutors. Victims’ accounts show that he planned to flee the country, but before he did he allegedly sexually assaulted two more men, then left for Guatemala, where he would spend about a year before he was extradited last week back to the Bay Area.
Sarceno Orla was arraigned Monday on 43 sexual assault felonies spanning from 2018 to 2024, involving 19 adult male victims. The defendant did not speak during a brief hearing at the Palo Alto courthouse.
An Oct. 14 court filing by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office requested Sarceno Orla be held in county jail without bail, citing the serial nature of the alleged crimes and his status as a fugitive for the past year. The filing also referenced charging enhancements accompanying some of the felony counts that allege he knowingly exposed victims to HIV.
Sarceno Orla “is as high of a flight risk as could be shown to this court given the conduct he showed in fleeing the country back in late 2024,” the filing states. “If released the defendant poses not just a risk to the public regarding safety and danger of inflicting great bodily injury on others but should be seen as a risk of creating a true health crisis given the conduct he has already shown here.”
Judge Thomas Kuhnle sided with prosecutors, and Sarceno Orla’s attorney did not object.
“His conduct … caused the court to believe his release would result in a substantial likelihood of great bodily harm to others,” Kuhnle said Monday.
While just under 20 reported victims are reflected in the current charges, Mountain View police and prosecutors suspect that as many as 60 men were victimized by Sarceno Orla. They base that estimate in part on an examination of the defendant’s phone, which they say contained video recordings of several assaults of unconscious men who have not formally reported crimes. At least one man, whose assault was charged, was connected to the case only after investigators identified him in one of the videos.
After the defendant posted $250,000 bail following his initial August 2024 arraignment, Sarceno Orla apparently held at least one farewell bash for himself, according to the filing.
At an Oct. 19, 2024 gathering — 10 days before he skipped a court hearing and led authorities to believe that he had absconded — he reportedly told friends that “he was leaving to Guatemala because he was experiencing psychological problems,” and that he was traveling in secret to avoid opposition from his mother.
One of the partygoers told police investigators that he went with the group to a local bar, felt severely sick after drinking one beer, and later woke up to the sight of Sarceno Orla sexually fondling him. The defendant, he said, stopped after realizing that he was conscious.
Several reported victims recalled feeling uncharacteristically woozy after drinking a beverage that had been within Sarceno Orla’s reach. At least seven told investigators that, either after a night of drinking or while getting a haircut at his apartment, Sarceno Orla waved a strong-smelling substance under their noses before they lost consciousness. Sarceno Orla apparently told them that it was to counteract their inebriation or relax them; at least one reported victim described the substance as resembling acetone.
Eight other men reported being victimized by the defendant but their allegations were not charged, according to the filing. That could be for reasons ranging from insufficient evidence to the statute of limitations expiring. But those men’s accounts could still be introduced at a possible trial, under a state statute that allows uncharged crimes to be cited in sex crimes prosecutions to establish a pattern of sexual misconduct.
Sarceno Orla was remanded back to the Elmwood men’s jail in Milpitas and was ordered to return to court Jan. 26.