PUBLISHED March 30, 12:55 p.m. PT / UPDATED April 2, 4:57 p.m. PT

Trigger warning: mentions of sexual assault, hate crimes

After nine days of trial and testimony, a jury convicted Dalante Jerome Bell — a 22-year-old Garden Grove resident accused of sexually assaulting a Chapman University freshman in September 2021 — of two felony charges: assault with intent to commit sexual offense and sexual penetration with a foreign object.

The verdict came this morning at the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana under the supervision of Judge Michael J. Cassidy and followed two days of deliberation from the jury. Members of the public saw contrasting emotional images between the families of Bell and the Chapman student in the courtroom when the verdict was announced. 

Beverly Hills based attorney Dermot Givens represented Bell throughout the legal proceedings and has maintained that Bell was falsely accused. In a Feb. 22 interview with The Panther, Givens said that “his whole career had built up to this case” and claimed the student committed a hate crime against Bell.

The 18-year-old Chapman student claimed she was on FaceTime with her boyfriend when Bell attacked her and attempted to penetrate her with his fingers over her pants. She said she was sitting in the courtyard near Henley Hall when Bell approached her and pushed her onto the ground before pressing his fingers into her vaginal area. 

The only evidence of the altercation was a short video clip featuring the two on the ground, though the contextual footage from before and after this approximately 20-second incident were not provided to the Orange Police Department (OPD) by Chapman Public Safety. 

“He was beating me up, like a bully beating a kid in a schoolyard, and trying to finger me,” the student testified during the trial last week.

Deputy District Attorney Austin Neiman, who argued the case for the Chapman student, told jurors at the trial that a genetic swab revealed that Bell’s DNA was found on the chest area of the student’s shirt and the vaginal area of the sweatpants she was wearing during the altercation, which he pointed to as potential evidence of the assault.

“There is no hoax, no conspiracy, no racism (and) no bias; just police work following breadcrumbs to their conclusion,” Neiman said during the trial last week.

Neiman also argued that when the Chapman student saw Bell walking down the stairs, she got up to leave. However, as she moved to pass Bell, he punched her in the face, knocking her to the ground and sexually assaulting her, Neiman said.

Givens agreed that an altercation occurred between Bell and the student, but he framed the quarrel as an accident. He told The Panther that the Chapman student tripped on a piece of uneven pavement and Bell stumbled on top of her. 

The defense attorney said that Bell was on campus at Chapman looking to party and meet female students when he encountered the victim. Proceeding the physical tussle, the student provoked Bell by using a racial epithet, Givens said.

“Hopefully, they’ll come and arrest that girl and charge her with a hate crime,” Givens told The Panther in a Feb. 22 interview. “You spit on somebody and call them (the N-word) and beat them up, that’s a hate crime.”

Despite Givens’ arguments, the jury found sufficient evidence to convict Bell with the two felony charges. Further, a new allegation was brought up by the prosecution that Bell preyed on the student because she was “particularly vulnerable” at the time of the attack.

“Particularly vulnerable” refers to if the student was “defenseless, unguarded, accessible, assailable (or) susceptible to the defendant's criminal act,” according to Neiman. The verdict for this new allegation — which may affect the sentencing — has not yet been revealed.

“(Bell) picked her for a reason,” Neiman said this morning at the trial. “He picked her because she was vulnerable … He picked her because he could.”

Givens argued that since the student is a second-degree black belt in karate, she would not be considered vulnerable or defenseless. 

Bell’s sentencing date was slated for April 22 at 9:00 a.m. in courtroom C41 at the Central Justice Center.

Inconsistencies in both parties’ stories added difficulty to the situation. The Chapman student claimed that she was unable to tell Bell’s race at the time of the altercation, while Bell’s defense held that her actions perpetuated racism.

The student also changed her story in various interviews with OPD representatives regarding the attacker’s description and whether or not he attempted to penetrate her. However, it is a well-documented phenomenon that victims of sexual assault can undergo severe trauma resulting in altered memory and a potentially warped perception of reality.

Bell will next move to sentencing, where a judge will determine the penalty for Bell’s crimes.

This is a developing story. Follow The Panther on social media and at www.thepanthernewspaper.org for updates.