A man was arrested late Tuesday in connection with a violent attack on a real estate agent in southern California over the weekend, officials confirmed Wednesday morning, as two more women reportedly came forward with disturbing accounts of similar encounters.
In the incident on Sunday, which happened in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Encino, a 51-year-old woman was attacked and allegedly groped in an assault that was captured on video.
The woman, who asked that her name be withheld, said the man who attacked her had come to her open house the previous week and was acting strangely and inappropriately.
The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed on Wednesday morning the man was arrested late Tuesday night and is being booked on charges. Additional information is expected to be released later in the day. Officials have not announced how officers were able to make contact with and detain the man.
The victim told FOX11 she had brought the man outside to the front porch, in view of the home’s surveillance video. There she said the man began asking to look at the bedroom and that’s when she asked him to leave.
The man glanced up at the camera multiple times, then went to shake the realtor’s hand with some final small talk.
But suddenly, the surveillance video shows, the man shoves the realtor through the bushes in front of the home and onto a sidewalk. He then is seen running over to stand over her. The realtor told FOX11 the man then got on top of her and began to grope her chest as she let out bloodcurdling screams that can be heard on the surveillance video.
“I could have been dead yesterday,” she told FOX11.
Another real estate agent told CBS LA she saw the video and reached out about her own encounter with a similar-looking man in February after another encounter with him at an open house in the same neighborhood.
“He kind of freaked me out,” the realtor, who did not want to be identified, told CBS LA. “He left and came back to give me an orange. As he came back to give me the orange, he hugged me and then his hand went over my breast, and it really freaked me out.”
Frank Bernardo, Keller Williams team leader, told CBS LA that a second real estate agent also had an encounter with the same man last June, and recorded video of him riding his bike in Encino. He’s now warning all his employees to be cautious.
“Always work in pairs and have other agents help you,” he told CBS LA. “Safety above and beyond anything else.”
