Arrest Made In Connection With Rape Of Disabled Women
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A second suspect in the videotaped sexual assaults of profoundly disabled women has been arrested in Los Angeles after he surrendered to police, authorities said.
Ernie Lloyd, 27,of Los Angeles, was arrested Saturday after he appeared at a Hollywood police station and announced he had seen himself on the news and knew he was wanted, Los Angeles County sheriff's Capt. Michael Parker said in a statement.
Parker said police officers recognized Lloyd from photos and artist sketches of four men that were gleaned from more than 100 hours of video delivered to sheriff's headquarters last year.
Lloyd was being held in lieu of $100,000 bail. The sheriff's office said it didn't know if he had retained a lawyer.
As many as 10 suspects could have been involved in the assaults, investigators said.
Police had identified one suspect, 42-year-old Bert Hicks, who is serving time at Tehachapi State Prison on two felony sex counts and two abuse counts.
Hicks, a former worker at a Los Angeles care facility, is scheduled for release in 2012, according to sheriff's officials.
The videos, received in the mail by authorities last March, show men sexually assaulting physically and mentally disabled women, some of them in diapers. Officials said it took months for investigators to digitally enhance the grainy footage and produce pictures and artist sketches of four of the suspects.
Detectives believe the assaults occurred in 2007 or earlier, at a Los Angeles residential care facility where Lloyd was living. The name of the institution was not given, and it was unknown whether it was the same facility where Hicks worked.
Detectives believe they have identified a female victim, a former resident of the facility where Lloyd lived, and they are trying to track her down.
The footage was not released to the public, but authorities described seeing horrific acts. In one video, an obese man in a wheelchair is seen pushing himself into a small bedroom while wearing a diaper. His back is covered in scars and he appears to be a paraplegic resident of a care facility.
The man pulls himself onto a woman's bed, removes his own and her diaper, then assaults her, authorities said.
The videos came from an anonymous tipster who said a customer purchased a laptop on the streets of Inglewood and brought it to him to wipe the hard drive. Before doing so, he copied the videos and gave them to authorities.
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