A 22-year-old Anaheim man was booked today on suspicion of attempting to sexually assault a Chapman University student. Dalante Jerome Bell was booked on suspicion of assault with the intent to commit rape, said Sgt. Phil McMullin of the Orange Police Department.
Bell is not a Chapman student and has no affiliation with the university, McMullin said. The sergeant said media coverage of the attack prompted Bell’s family to bring him in Monday night, and he was taken into
custody about 11 p.m., McMullin said. He was being held on $500,000 bail.
Police in the city of Orange released surveillance video Monday of a suspect in the attack on an 18-year-old student at Chapman. The suspect, wearing all black and a skeleton mask, attacked the woman and groped her about 12:40 a.m. Friday, McMullin said.
The student was standing outside her dormitory, talking on her phone, when her attacker groped her, McMullin said. “She fought back and screamed and ran away,” McMullin said. Police were able to obtain video surveillance of the suspect without the mask, McMullin said.
The video surveillance came from a restaurant about a half-mile away from where the attack took place, McMullin said. Detectives spent the weekend going through video surveillance all around the crime scene.
The victim told reporters she is a second-degree black belt from Hawaii.
