Sex Assault Case at OCC Cleared Up

Police have closed the books on one of the four sexual assaults reported this year at Orange Coast College after the suspect turned himself in but the victim declined to press charges.

College spokesman Jim Carnett said police told administrators last week that the suspect, accompanied by his lawyer, was interviewed by police about the incident but that the victim had decided not to press charges.

Costa Mesa Police Detective Jack Archer confirmed that the victim was “no longer prosecuting” but declined to provide further details. “It was her choice,” he said.

In the Jan. 28 incident, the man struck up a conversation with the female student in a campus parking lot, saying he wanted to take pictures of her, according to police.

The two then went to a fourth-floor library study room where, police were told, the man sexually assaulted the woman. Police listed the incident as “kidnaping and rape with a foreign object,” both felonies.

But college administrators, after interviewing the student, determined that the encounter was “consensual” and listed it as “sexual battery,” a misdemeanor. Administrators did not publicize it on campus, and students learned about it through newspaper articles in mid-March.

The man was not a suspect in the three other sexual assaults reported on campus, which remain unsolved.