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View Winners → Crime Feb 09, 2023
Benjamin Parke Belser. | Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Police Department
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Los Angeles police Thursday urged any possible witnesses or victims of a man suspected in a series of Southland sexual assaults dating back to 2017 to come forward.
Benjamin Parke Belser, 36, was arrested Saturday in the Village Green neighborhood near Baldwin Hills on suspicion of rape, forced sodomy, forced oral copulation and sexual penetration with a foreign object in a series of sexual assaults beginning in 2017, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
The alleged attacks occurred in areas including West Los Angeles, downtown and Koreatown, police said.
According to the LAPD, Belser was charged earlier this week with a dozen felony counts.
Police said Belser would lure women using social media and dating applications.
“Beginning in at least 2017, he began contacting women online and used elaborate ruses to conceal his identity,” police said in a statement. “The sexual assaults continued until at least 2022, when (LAPD detectives) began their investigation against Belser.”
According to police, when Belser was arrested and investigators searched his home, they recovered “extensive evidence supporting the investigation and are still searching for additional information that could connect him to unreported crimes.”
Investigators thus far have identified five women whom they believe Belser assaulted, but they believe there are more victims who have yet to come forward.
“Cases like this are especially heartbreaking because people are often reluctant to report sex crimes because they’re embarrassed,” Detective Asia Hodge said in a statement. “But if these many survivors are already speaking out, we think there may be more people who are waiting to speak up. We need their help to hold him accountable. … We believe there are more people out there who need help and we’ll keep working until we find them.”
Belser was being held in lieu of $6.2 million bail.
Detectives asked that anyone with information contact LAPD’s Operations-West Bureau, Special Assault Section, at 213-473-0447. Anonymous tips can be relayed to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or at www.lacrimestoppers.org.
