An 18-year-old man is being held on $100,000 bail after being arrested in connection with a sexual assault in Santa Ana that left a 17-year-old girl hospitalized, police announced Tuesday.
Alexis Uriel Dominguez was booked into Orange County Jail on suspicion of sexual assault, according to a Santa Ana Police Department news release.
Dominguez was determined to be an acquaintance of the alleged victim, who initially told investigators she was kidnapped and sexually attacked by two homeless men as she walked home from Century High School around 11:15 a.m. Monday, police said.
The last thing she recalled before the assault was walking near the train tracks at Edinger Avenue, according to authorities.
Paramedics located the teen in the 1300 block of East McFadden Avenue and rushed her to the hospital. She was treated for "traumatic injuries," including head and sexual assault trauma, the release stated.
Because of her medical condition, detectives were not immediately able to interview the girl. When they did, detectives determined she was sexually assaulted in the area of 700 South Lyon Street, allegedly by Dominguez, according to police.
"She was not abducted, and that's one of the messages we want to get out to our community," said Cpl. Anthony Bertagna. "There is not somebody out there abducting our kids off our streets. So they can rest at ease with that."
Investigators were also originally looking into whether that incident was related to a sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl that occurred about 25 blocks away in the 1000 block of North Lincoln Avenue approximately 11 hours earlier, just after midnight on Monday.
In the first reported case, a man broke into a home, went into the teen's bedroom and started fondling her, police said.
Detectives were interviewing the 15-year-old when they learned of the second assault.
They have since determined there is no link between the two, according to the news release. A composite suspect sketch is expected to be released sometime Tuesday.