Local News in Brief : La Habra : After 3 1/2-Hour Chase, Suspect Held in Assault

A man suspected of sexually assaulting a Brea woman and stealing her car was arrested Monday after leading police on a 3 1/2-hour foot chase through La Habra.

Police said Johnnie Ray Fraijo, 24, of La Habra early Saturday morning sexually assaulted a 21-year-old woman whom he knew, then stole her car.

The woman immediately reported the incident, but police did not find Fraijo until Sunday evening, when Brea Detective Jon Strash spotted him at a phone booth at Whittier and Harbor boulevards in La Habra about 5:45 p.m.

He was apparently calling the woman he is suspected of assaulting, Strash said.

Fraijo fled and led up to 20 officers, police dogs and an Anaheim Police Department helicopter on a chase through La Habra residential neighborhoods.

Strash said Fraijo hid in front and back yards of homes: “We’d chase him for a while, and he’d disappear. It just kept going.

“He was going through somebody’s yard, and he was confronted by a couple of citizens. He stopped for a second, and an officer caught him.”

Fraijo is being held on $250,000 bail at Orange County Jail on suspicion of sexual assault, auto theft and resisting arrest.