Man Arrested in 2005 Sexual Assault in Newport Beach

A man suspected in the 2005 sexual assault of a woman in Newport Beach was arrested this week by police in Irvine.

Travis Dewayne Batten Jr. was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of the Newport attack and two others in Irvine, Irvine police Lt. Julia Engen said. The Irvine attacks happened in 2006, and 2010, she said.

The cases had hit a wall until last month when a detective saw in an overnight log of police calls a report of a suspicious subject near where the Irvine rapes occurred in the Harvard Avenue and Marquette area, Engen said.

Irvine investigators set up surveillance in the area and gathered evidence that led them to Batten, Engen said.

"We really became part of the neighborhood,'' she said.

Investigators surreptitiously got Batten's fingerprints. When they analyzed them, they found the prints matched the 2005 sexual assault in Newport Beach, Engen said.

"Newport Beach did a great job" collecting the latent fingerprints from the first crime scene, she said.

Now investigators have obtained a DNA sample from Batten that will be used to see if there's a match to the evidence collected in the assaults, Engen said. So far, investigators know the genetic material collected from the three crime scenes match, she said.

Batten was being held without bail, Engen said.

— City News Service