An Anaheim man was sentenced Friday to six years in state prison and must register as a sex offender after a jury found him guilty in March of sexually assaulting a Chapman University student last September.
Dalante Jerome Bell, 22, was accused of wearing a mask that concealed his face and attacking the 18-year-old student on the school’s campus while she was video chatting with her boyfriend. She was able to fight off Bell while others on campus came to her aid.
In response to the attack, Chapman University increased patrols on campus.
Security camera footage played during the trial caught a portion of the struggle, appearing to show the woman falling to the ground and flailing her legs as the man is above her. The woman said she screamed and kicked at him.
He ran off, but numerous security cameras captured him leaving the area. Police later publicly released footage they said showed the man after he took off his mask.
After Bell’s father saw that footage on the news he convinced Bell to turn himself in to police.
The woman testified that she chased Bell briefly following the alleged attack while yelling expletives at him, but she denied using any racial epithets, which he had accused her of doing.
She said she didn’t know his ethnicity since a mask was covering his face.
Source: Orange County Register
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