IRVINE, Calif.—A 23-year-old Beaumont man was arrested June 14 in the sexual battery of a woman who was attacked from behind and groped in Irvine—an assault that was caught on surveillance video.
Brandon Dybdahl was arrested just before 8:20 a.m. in Laguna Hills in connection with Saturday’s attack, which occurred near Graduate and Scholarship, according to the Irvine Police Department. A white sedan that was also spotted in the surveillance video of the attack was found in his possession when he was arrested, police said.
The suspect was being booked on suspicion of sexual battery and false imprisonment.
A police car is seen outside the University of California–Irvine (UC Irvine) Medical Center in Orange, Calif., Oct. 15, 2021. (Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images)
Dybdahl is a transient and was “couch surfing” with family friends, who were trying to “help him out,” but did not know about the alleged attack, Sgt. Karie Davies said.
Surveillance video released earlier this week by police showed a man wearing a T-shirt and shorts exit a white vehicle and approach a woman from behind as she is crossing a street. The suspect grabs the woman from behind and briefly struggles with her before running off and getting into the car, which police described as a 2006–12 white Nissan Sentra.
Dybdahl also has a warrant for a hit-and-run collision, Davies said.