This week's installment includes sexual assaults in Huntington Beach and at UC Irvine as well as the number of molestation victims blamed on a San Clemente massage therapy business owner rising from two to six.
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Huntington Beach police detectives arrested a man who resides in that city on Dec. 4 for the sexual assault and robbery of a woman just after midnight on Sept. 10.
Jesus Diaz Vasquez was booked at Huntington Beach Jail on suspicion of felonious sexual assault and robbery and held in lieu of $100,000, according to the police department, which adds no booking photo is being released at this time due to the continuing investigation.
But Vasquez could look something like the man in a sketch police released after the attack. A woman was walking home alone just after midnight when she was approached by a man who tried to talk with her, but she continued to walk away. The man then knocked her down, sexually assaulted her and, before running off, took her purse.
Detectives later developed information that led them to Vasquez, according to the police department, which asks anyone with information about the incident to call their tip line at 714.375.5066. Anonymous tips can be left with Orange County Crime Stoppers at 855.847.6227 (855-TIP-OCCS), via occrimestoppers.org or s by texting to 274637 (C-R-I-M-E-S) from a cell phone. (All text messages should begin with the letters “OCCS”.)
Paging Bill Cosby: A UC Irvine student was sexually assaulted while incapacitated in a dorm room over the Dec. 6-7 weekend by a fellow student, according to UCI campus police.
The female student told police she was passed out during the assault in the Mesa Court residence hall.
She described her attacker as a white 18-year-old man with a dark complexion, a medium build, standing 5-foot-10 with short black hair and dark brown eyes.
This is the second sexual assault reported in the past two months at a UCI residence hall, as campus police are also investigating a different woman being “forcibly fondled” on Nov. 21 by a man she met on a social media site.
Anyone with information about either incident should contact the UCI Police Department at 949.824.5223.
Meanwhile, UCI offers information about sex offenses at www.soinfo.uci.edu/. The CARE Office provides confidential support services and counseling to victims at 949.824.7273 or via email: ca**@uc*.edu. Additional resources include the UCI Counseling Center, 949.824.6457; UCI Student Health Center, 949.824.5301; UCI Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, 949.824.5594; 24-hour Support Community Service Programs, 949.831.9110; Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, 1.800.656.4673.
Dial 9-1-1 or use an emergency phone available on campus in case of an emergency, of course. The UCI Police Department Safety Escort program is available to anyone during the evening hours at .949.824.7233.
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Ping Li, who owns a massage therapy business in San Clemente, previously pleaded not guilty to “inappropriately” touching a co-worker and a client four times between June 4 and Oct. 4. But news coverage of the case prompted four additional women to come forward, according to the Orange County District Attorney's office, which has now charged the 51-year-old San Clemente resident with six misdemeanor counts of sexual battery.
Li, who is out on $100,000 bail pending a scheduled Jan. 12 pretrial hearing, faces up to three years in jail and a $12,000 fine with a conviction, according to the DA's office, which notes that a judge has ordered the owner of Massage Clover in San Clemente to no longer work as a massage therapist nor enter a parlor during business hours.
Meanwhile, the investigation continues, and anyone with information helpful to the case is asked to call sheriff's deputies at 714.647.7418, the DA's Special Victims Unit at 714.647-.7418 or Supervising District Attorney Investigator Paul Carvo at 714.834.7538.
Previous: Ping Li Accused of Being Massage Business Owner Who Rubbed Pair the Wrong Way.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.