VACAVILLE — In March 2018, a woman known in court records only as Jane Doe left her Vacaville home and went to TJ’s Tavern. Once there, she struck up a conversation with another woman, and opened up to her about financial problems she was having and going through a recent breakup.

The woman, later identified as Sarah Keyosha Smith, 28, invited Doe back to her Rodeo home to spend the night watching movies and talking more. Doe agreed. But the next morning, Smith and her roommate told Doe they wouldn’t be taking her home, according to police testimony.

By spending the night and eating breakfast, Doe had racked up a debt, they allegedly explained. If Doe wanted to pay it off, she had to prostitute for them.

What followed, according to police, was a five-week ordeal where Doe, Smith, and her pimp, identified as Joseph Angelo Hernandez, 50, traveled the country, staying in hotels and making thousands through prostitution, and covering their expenses by maxing out Doe’s credit cards.

Doe would later tell detectives that Hernandez threatened to “go after” her family if she ran from him, and that Hernandez and Smith took all the money while the “debt” continued to rise. By the end, they allegedly told her she had to “work off” $5,000.

“At a certain point, she realized that there was no way she was ever going — the price would keep continuing to go up,” Vacaville police Detective Daniel Stoddard said.

Eventually, while meeting a couple in Sonoma County who had responded to a prostitution ad, Doe revealed she was being held against her will and convinced the couple to help her call a ride. She escaped, and called police, authorities testified.

Hernandez and Smith now face felony charges of human trafficking, pimping and pandering. Both defendants were ordered to stand trial last month, after a preliminary hearing where their attorneys disputed that Doe was being held against her will, pointing to numerous times she had opportunities to either flag police or get away from her alleged captors.

Hernandez, police testified, is a rapper who goes by the name “Six-Four,” and who also produced adult DVDs featuring himself on the cover. In addition to his Rodeo residence, he owns a home in Las Vegas, and kept with him a book called “Pimpology,” which authorities described as essentially a manual for recruiting women into prostitution. He was permanently injured in a shooting and requires a wheelchair to get around, his attorney said during the preliminary hearing.

Smith, according to police testimony, was Hernandez’s “bottom b—-,” a term that refers to a pimp’s right-hand prostitute who helps manage the illicit business. The two allegedly posed for photos wearing crowns, which a Vacaville detective testified was to show they were the “king and queen” of the trafficking ring.

Hernandez even allegedly had business cards printed out, featuring a picture of him with nude women and the caption, “Do you want to make an easy $500-$1,000?”

Doe told police that when they first approached her about prostituting, she was “uncomfortable, but went along with it.” Later, she revealed to detectives it wasn’t her first bout as a sex worker, that she had done it for a four-month span starting the previous year.

She told police that while traveling with Hernandez and Smith to Rohnert Park, Las Vegas, Texas, Los Angeles and other places, she would ask to be taken home and they would flat-out refuse. She said Hernandez told her he knew where her family lived and threatened to send “bounty hunter-type people” after them if she left, police testified.

When she was able to get away after five weeks, Hernandez allegedly left menacing voice mail messages on her phone. Police testified in one he said, “Best believe you and whoever’s hiding you out gonna feel my power.”

During the preliminary hearing, attorneys for both Hernandez and Smith attacked the most serious charge of human trafficking, which requires authorities to prove the defendants “deprived Doe of her liberty.” Kellin Cooper, representing Hernandez, said Doe’s alleged belief she could not leave “unreasonable.”

“The evidence in this case is that she could have left any time she wanted to,” Cooper said, adding she was an adult and “had every opportunity to withdraw from what she chose to do.”

Defense attorneys also suggested during Stoddard’s cross-examination that Hernandez was involved in adult entertainment, not pimping, a possibility the officer conceded had not been investigated.

Contra Costa County Deputy District Attorney Dana Filkowski, the prosecutor, said the defendants put Doe under increasing “force and duress” the more she tried to get out of it. She said Doe’s parents were so concerned for her safety they called Rodeo police, but the officer in charge, Filkowski said, “unfortunately … doesn’t appear to have taken it seriously enough.”

Judge Rebecca Hardie ruled there was enough evidence to order the defendants to stand trial on the charges. They pleaded not guilty at their arraignment hearing last week and a trial date has not been set.

“She was a person who was subject to duress and coercion for fear of shame and humiliation with her family,” Hardie said, later adding examples of the defendants depriving Doe’s liberty included “taking her passport, threatening her, controlling her ability to eat, controlling what she does.”