Suspect charged in attack on Chapman student

A 22-year-old Anaheim man was charged Thursday with sexually assaulting a Chapman University student, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office announced.

Dalante Jerome Bell was charged with single felony counts each of assault with the intent to commit a sex offense and sexual penetration by a foreign object, according to court records.

Bell, who was being held on $500,000 bail, could face up to eight years in prison if convicted of both charges at trial.

Bell is not a Chapman student and has no affiliation with the university, said Sgt. Phil McMullin of the Orange Police Department.

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.

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 with her boyfriend, when her attacker pounced, the Orange County  District Attorney’s Office alleged.

“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 of the suspect without a mask 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.

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