Palm Springs, CA
Additional victims have come forward, resulting in more criminal charges being levied against a man accused of a violent sexual assault in Palm Springs last year.
Hakan Isik, the defendant in the Palm Springs dating sexual assault case, had a court appearance scheduled for Friday, which has now been rescheduled to April 11 at the request of the defense.
The 56-year-old from Desert Hot Springs now faces 8 felony counts and four misdemeanor counts. Initially, the Riverside County District Attorney’s office had filed a complaint against him with 4 felonies and 4 misdemeanors.
Isik did not enter a plea to these charges on Friday but is anticipated to do so in April. New documents reveal that there are two additional unnamed victims in the case, bringing the total number of listed victims to 7. If convicted on all counts, Isik could be sentenced to life in prison. He is currently held in custody on $1 million bail.
Background Story
The Palm Springs Tribune was one of the first papers to break the story back in April of 2023 regarding the sexual assault of Rand Snell who visited Palm Springs from St. Petersburg Florida in January of 2023. It was confirmed in May of 2023 that Isaak Hakan Isik, a Desert Hot Springs resident was taken into custody by the detective handling the case.
(Defendent Hakan Isik of Desert Hot Springs)
Snell, who detailed the accounts on the evening of January 28th, told the Palm Springs Tribune after the arrest, “I’m relieved he won’t he hurting anyone else tonight.”
It all started when Snell signed onto an online dating app. There, he was chatted up by a man with a screenname called BiTop, who told Snell he was a Palm Springs resident. After chatting for a little while, BiTop asked Snell if he could go to his hotel room to meet. Snell agreed. What happened afterwards has caused Snell a significant amount of trauma leading to the eventual arrest of Hakan Isik.
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