Almost Nine Months After Attack, Berkeley Police Charge Antelope Man in Brutal Assault, Attempted Rape

Police have charged a suspect nearly nine months after a Berkeley woman reported an armed home invasion robbery, assault and attempted rape. 

According to a Berkeley Police Department statement issued Tuesday, a man broke into the victim’s apartment on the 2400 block of Warring Street on Sept. 27, 2020. The woman woke up to a gun in her face and tried to flee when the man pulled her covers back and made motions as if he was going to sexually assault her. He struck her in the head several times with an object before she was able to escape and was later treated with five stitches to her face and eight staples on top of her head.

He went on to steal several personal and electronic items from the victim’s home, police said.

The suspect was gone when police arrived at the scene, but they were able to collect what would become “instrumental evidence” on the path to identifying him as a 43-year-old man from Antelope in Sacramento County.

Police said the man robbed another person in Berkeley at gunpoint on Jan. 8, 2021 and that victim was able to catch the license plate on the vehicle the suspect used to flee. A “wanted felony stop” alert was issued for the involved vehicle.

Five days later, San Pablo police made contact with the man and arrested him for possession of a stolen vehicle and a firearm, in addition to “other various crimes.” That arrest opened the door for BPD to obtain a search warrant on the man’s vehicle where they located items taken from the victim’s home on Warring Street and further evidence that linked him to “multiple robberies and burglaries” near South Campus.

Once in custody at Santa Rita Jail, collected DNA evidence confirmed the Antelope man as the suspect in the September 2020 attack. He faces charges filed on June 15 for property crimes, assault and battery and assault with attempt to commit rape. All three charges are stacked with enhancements.