UCI student arrested on suspicion of rape

UCI CAMPUS -- A student here was arrested Sunday on charges of

torturing, raping and robbing a 15-year-old girl he allegedly met in an

Internet chat room after Irvine police located him in the same chat room,

police said.

Investigators say Brian Dance, a 20-year-old sophomore from Newport

Beach, arranged to meet the victim at the Block of Orange on Thursday.

From there, he took her to an empty parking lot at UC Irvine and

assaulted her with his belt and other objects for more than two hours,

police said.

The victim was treated for serious injuries at Hoag Hospital and

released Friday morning. Officials say she is in stable condition.

Police arrested Dance with the help of a decoy -- a friend of the

victim -- who arranged, online, to meet the suspect at the Block on

Sunday.

Police say Dance met the victim a week before the attack in an online

chat room and arranged to meet her at the Orange mall at 4:30 p.m.

Thursday. After arriving at a UC Irvine parking lot that had emptied out

because of the holidays, Dance allegedly covered the victim’s eyes with

duct tape, beat her with his fists, belt and belt buckle, carved

swastikas on her face and sexually assaulted her.

Before releasing the victim, he stole a small amount of cash from her

wallet and told her to lay down on the ground before he drove away in a

white Honda Accord, police say.

The victim then flagged down a driver at the intersection of

University and Harvard drives in Irvine. She was taken to Hoag Hospital,

where she was treated for her injuries.

On Sunday afternoon, the victim called the Irvine police, saying that

her friend was chatting with the suspect online in the same chat room

where the two had met, according to officers. The friend agreed to act as

a decoy and led the suspect to the Block, where investigators arrested

him.

The victim identified Dance, who was wearing a belt, carrying a knife

and driving a four-door Honda that matched the descriptions the victim

had provided to police, officials said.

Two days before Dance’s scheduled arraignment at Harbor Justice

Center, police say they still don’t know much about the suspect except

that he is a social-ecology major and worked for the campus parking and

transportation department at UCI.

“Because campus is closed, we can’t even look,” said Karen Newell

Young, media relations director at UC Irvine. “But we know he was working

there at the time of his arrest -- not as a campus escort, but he used to

put up signs.”

Police are holding Dance at Orange County Jail on $250,000 bail.