Lawyer alleges on-campus sexual assault is cover-up for hate crime

PUBLISHED March 12, 7:27 p.m. PT / UPDATED March 29, 11:37 a.m. PT

After Dalante Jerome Bell, an Orange County resident, was charged with sexually assaulting a Chapman University student in the courtyard of Henley Hall, questions are coming out surrounding true details of the incident in the trial that began March 16. EMILY PARIS, Staff Photographer

Trigger warning: mentions of sexual assault, hate crimes

Questions regarding an on-campus sexual assault incident from September 2021 are playing out in the Orange County court system during the ongoing trial that began mid-March.

Chapman University released a Sept. 24, 2021 email alerting students of a sexual battery report from the night before. A follow-up email sent Sept. 27 included a photo of the suspect walking down Glassell Street. The alleged assault occurred on campus in the lower courtyard of Henley Hall between a visitor and a Chapman student, who has opted to remain anonymous in the press.

Since then, the man in the photo — 22-year-old Orange County native Dalante Jerome Bell — was arrested and charged with two felony counts: assault with intent to commit sexual offense and sexual penetration by a foreign object. 

Bell pleaded not guilty to both these counts, and now, his lawyer claims a false narrative has been continually perpetuated about the true events of that night.

Beverly Hills based attorney Dermot Givens — who is representing Bell in the ongoing legal proceedings — said the sexual assault narrative is covering up the true nature of the situation: a hate crime.

“(Bell) went to the campus of Chapman University in Orange County looking for a party and some girls,” Givens said in a Feb. 9 statement sent to The Panther. “In a fully lighted (sic) area at the entry to a dormitory, he approached a girl. She rejected him by spitting on him and calling him the ‘N’ word. A 22-second physical altercation occurred that ended with the girl chasing after him.”

In contrast, the student who was allegedly assaulted told the Orange Police Department (OPD) and multiple news organizations that she was on FaceTime with her boyfriend, a student at the University of California, Berkeley, at the time of the incident. Looking for some privacy, she settled down on a bench in the Henley Hall courtyard around 1 a.m. Sept. 24, where she soon encountered Bell. She claimed the suspect pushed her to the ground and started attacking her.

"He punches me in the face and I hit … the concrete trash can behind me; he’s just like beating me up," the student told abc7 a couple days after the incident. "I don't know if I hit him off or (if) he heard people coming. Somehow he got off, and I chased him back up the stairs, cursing him out."

But Givens argues the student was falling to the ground even before Bell reached her proximity. 

He pointed to a piece of dislodged pavement as the culprit, which he said the student tripped over as she was walking backwards. Givens claims the student used the racial epithet toward Bell as she was retreating.

The only video evidence to support this claim is a clip extracted from a security camera inside of Henley Hall, trimmed to isolate the 22-second quarrel. Footage documenting the events preceding and following these 22 seconds was “wiped,” according to Givens.

“You can't destroy evidence,” Givens said. “What reason would (Chapman Public Safety) have in the world to erase those videos?” 

However, former Chief of Public Safety Randy Burba said the university’s camera system automatically gets wiped after 28 days if nothing is saved. OPD officials must issue a subpoena in order to save a surveillance video clip, and if not, the video will be automatically deleted.

“If we get a report that something major happened, like someone’s laptop got stolen in the middle of the Piazza, we’ll immediately go and pull all footage that’s available and save it,” Burba told The Panther in a Feb. 28 interview. “We’ll lock it away and save it, or we’ll give it to law enforcement or we’ll use it for our own investigation.”

PSAFE had previously sent out an announcement Sept. 24 reporting the initial occurrence of sexual battery, which stated that the resident was making a phone call when Bell, who was hiding in the bushes wearing a skeleton mask, struck her in the face, causing her to fall to the ground.

In the days and weeks that followed, the student’s story changed. At a Jan. 11 preliminary hearing, Lucia Zvonaru, an OPD corporal who formally questioned the student after the incident, affirmed the victim noticed Bell staring at her for about five minutes from the top of a staircase leading down to the courtyard before striking. This report contradicts the original narrative that the suspect ambushed the student.

Zvonaru also attested that the student had initially described the assailant as about 6’5”, wearing all black and donning a skeleton face mask, but she was unable to identify the suspect’s race. This illustration of Bell aligns with a revised description of the suspect that the victim provided to Public Safety following the write-up of the original police report.

“On Saturday, Sept. 25, 2021 at approximately (9 a.m.), I was contacted by the victim’s mother via telephone,” wrote Chapman University Public Safety Sergeant Al Cabrera in a police report shared with The Panther. “She requested that I contact her daughter, the victim, who wanted to provide an updated description of the suspect. At approximately 10:50 a.m., I spoke with the victim by phone. She told me the suspect was fully covered, and she could not determine the color of their skin.”

Givens maintains, however, that the student was aware of Bell’s race, which provoked the alleged racial slurs allegedly used against him. He told The Panther he believes the student and OPD concocted the story about the sexual assault to pin the guilt on Bell and cover up an act of racism.

At the preliminary hearing Jan. 11, witnesses said the student did not report any penetration until a week after the incident. Zvonaru confirmed the student did not report penetration or skin-to-skin contact from the altercation in the initial interview. 

Later in the hearing, OPD Sergeant Sarah Costa described another interview with the Chapman student from Sept. 30, where the student claimed Bell penetrated her vagina with his fingers over her pants.

“She told me that … he used force, which was moderate to severe,” Costa said at the preliminary hearing. “She said that it was not a constant type of force, pressure. It was intermediate, like pushing in and out … she described that it did penetrate her vagina, even though it did not go all the way in.”

However, sexual assault victims can often suffer from trauma that may affect their memory, adding a layer of difficulty to the ordeal.

Immediately after the incident, the student denied paramedic services but was advised to receive a medical report to corroborate her assault claim. She did not seek this until Sept. 28, and by that point, she said she only suffered from slight elbow pain, according to a medical report shared with The Panther.

“It’s just like when you have an auto accident,” Givens said when describing the necessity of obtaining a medical report after an encounter with sexual assault. “As soon as you get (in a car crash) … they say, ‘Go to the doctor.’ The injuries may show up later. You may have bruising.”

More recently, Givens came to Chapman Feb. 16 during the student involvement fair to disseminate flyers around campus advocating for his client and highlighting inconsistencies in the alleged victim’s story.

“Chapman U officials reported a fake RAPE at Henley Hall on 9/24/21 to cover up a HATE crime,” the flyer read. “They want to hide the (fact) that a young black man was spit on, attacked and called (the ‘N’ word).”

The flyer also named four Chapman students and one non-Chapman student, who Givens said were listed in the police report. The five students have either declined to speak with The Panther or their legal representation declined on their behalf.

Burba condemned the flyers for listing the names of various Chapman students in association with a potential hate crime without clear context.

“If you think about it, it’s despicable,” Burba said. “You put students’ names in a flyer and then say they’re all a bunch of racists. What do you think (Givens is) intending for the students to (do)? (They’ll say), ‘I don’t want to be involved. I don’t want to talk to the District Attorney.’ He’s basically trying to intimidate people into not cooperating so he gets his client off. It’s despicable.”

Givens has a record of three disciplinary charges filed in the California State Bar within the past five years — two of which are still ongoing. In November 2017, the attorney was suspended from practicing law for a year and given a two-year probation period for “multiple acts of wrongdoing.” 

“I’m not defending myself, (but) I’ve had some issues with the State Bar, and they have some issues with me,” Givens told The Panther.

Bell sat before a jury at the Central Justice Center, courtroom C41, to plead innocence in a trial that began on March 16. At this time, both sides have argued their case, but the jury has not yet reached a verdict. With glaring inconsistencies from both parties involved in the crime, it remains to be seen what truly defines “justice” in this case.

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