Bail Denied for Married California Woman Charged with Raping Bel Air Boy She Met Online

A Harford County judge denied bail Thursday for the married 36-year-old California woman on charges she  she first met playing an online video game. 

Rachel Ann Hicks of Lake Forest, CA, appeared for her bail hearing via a live video feed in Harford County District Court at about 1:30 p.m. Thursday before Judge Mimi Cooper.

Hicks, who is being held at the Harford County Detention Center, faces charges of two counts of second-degree rape and one count each of second-degree sex offense and sexual solicitation.

Hicks's public defender, Michael Ambridge, said his client has "no prior history with courts." He said she could live with her parents in Florida and requested a "releasable bail."

The state's attorney, however, asked that Hicks be held without bail, and Cooper granted the request.

Hicks was arrested at her home Jan. 7 by Orange County, CA, police after admitting to having sex with a 13-year-old Bel Air boy, whom she met playing Xbox Live, prosecutors say.

Police said Hicks drove to Florida from California on Thanksgiving weekend to visit family and stopped in Maryland on the way home. During her visit to Bel Air she had sex with the boy at his home, charging documents state.

At Thursday's bail hearing, Trooper Michelle Workman of the Harford County Child Advocacy Center said Hicks and the boy engaged in vaginal intercourse once and oral sex twice in a five-hour period during her Maryland visit. Hicks admitted to the acts in a recorded phone conversation with the boy's father Dec. 7, and again when police came to her home in early January, prosecutors allege.

Hicks was held at a county jail in Irvine, CA, before being transported to Maryland by U.S. marshals Wednesday. She faces up to 20 years in prison for each count of rape as well as for the sex offense charge and up to 10 years and a $25,000 fine for the charge of sexual solicitation of a minor.

Hicks is separated from her husband, who was informed of the allegations against Hicks by the 13-year-old boy's father. She is not permitted to have any contact with minors.