BERKELEY — Police are warning people near UC Berkeley about a man who has accosted 10 women from behind and tried to touch them after lifting their skirts.
The incidents have happened south of campus since October, including along Piedmont Avenue, Warring Street and Channing and Bowditch ways, said Officer Andrew Frankel, Berkeley police spokesman.
Police are classifying the incidents as sexual batteries. Most have happened between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m.
The assailant is described as a white man in his 20s or 30s, up to 5 feet 10 inches tall, with a medium build and short, dark wavy hair. The description is sketchy because few of the women have gotten a good look at the assailant, Frankel said.
The spate of attacks is not related to the arrest last week of James Beldin, 45, a registered sex offender who was spotted using a ladder to peek inside a woman’s bedroom on the 2000 block of Parker Street, Frankel said.
Beldin was arrested less than two weeks after he was released from state prison after serving time for an unspecified sex crime, police said. He is being held without bail at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.