Los Angeles Police continue to investigate a California man who was arrested on multiple sexual assault charges. An LAPD press release includes multiple descriptors of the man, including that he has been described as “having a distinctive body odor.”
Benjamin Parke Belser, 36, was arrested by the LAPD’s Operations-West Bureau’s Special Assault Section (SAS) on February 4 “on suspicion of rape, forced sodomy, forced oral copulation and sexual penetration with a foreign object for a series of sexual assaults dating back to 2017,” a press release reads.
The LAPD wrote Belser “appears to have targeted women using social media and dating applications,” using “elaborate ruses to conceal his identity” in the “West Los Angeles, Koreatown, and Downtown Los Angeles areas” starting as early as 2017.
He is a white male who stands 6-feet-5-inches tall, weighs 170 pounds, with brown hair and hazel eyes,” the release reads. “Witnesses described him as having a distinctive body odor.”
Belser previously lived in Asheville, North Carolina, the Citizen-Times reported.
The outlet also noted he was registered to vote in North Carolina between 2016 and 2020, “a time overlapping with the period during which police allege he committed the crimes in Los Angeles.” Consequently, law enforcement is “not ruling out potential victims in Western North Carolina.”
Police alleged that Belser assaulted five victims who are currently known but “believe there are others who have yet to come forward.”
The release indicated the SAS began investigating Belser in 2022, leading to a search on February 4, where detectives allegedly “recovered extensive evidence supporting the investigation.”
“We need their help to hold him accountable. We’re gratified that the District Attorney’s office filed charges, but the work has just begun,” the press release quotes SAS Detective Asia Hodge as saying. “We believe there are more people out there who need help and we’ll keep working until we find them.”
The LAPD said Belser is being held on 12 felony charges. His bail is set at $6.2 million.
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