Serial Rapist Used Social Media, Apps To Find Women, LAPD Claims

LOS ANGELES, CA — A man suspected of using social media and dating apps to meet and rape women across the Los Angeles region may have additional victims, Los Angeles police detectives announced Thursday. Authorities are urging potential victims to come forward.

Over the weekend, police arrested 36-year-old Benjamin Parke Belser, of South Los Angeles, on suspicion of ape, forced sodomy, forced oral copulation and sexual penetration with a foreign object. Belser faces 12 felony counts, and is being held on $6.2 million bail.

Investigators identified five alleged victims but believe there are others who have yet to come forward. The attacks date back to 2017, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

The Los Angeles Police Department’s Operations-West Bureau’s Special Assault Section are seeking additional victims and witnesses in a series of alleged sexual assaults in the West Los Angeles, Koreatown, and Downtown Los Angeles areas.

"Belser, a North Carolina native, appears to have targeted women using social media and dating applications. Beginning in at least 2017, he began contacting women online and used elaborate ruses to conceal his identity," the LAPD said in a written statement. "The sexual assaults continued until at least 2022."

On Saturday, detectives served a search warrant on his home in the Village Green community. According to police, they seized "extensive evidence supporting the investigation." Detectives are still attempting to connect him to unreported crimes.

According to police, Belser used aliases, but victims described their attacker as a 6-feet-5-inches tall, slender white man with brown hair, hazel eyes and a distinctive body odor.

“Cases like this are especially heartbreaking because people are often reluctant to report sex crimes because they’re embarrassed,” said LAPD Detective Asia Hodge. “But if these many survivors are already speaking out, we think there may be more people who are waiting to speak up. 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.

“We believe there are more people out there who need help and we’ll keep working until we find them.”

Detectives are urging anyone with information that could lead to the identification of additional victims or witnesses to contact LAPD’s Operations-West Bureau, Special Assault Section, at 213-473-0447.