Crime & Safety

Professional Clown Arrested for Alleged Rape of 12-Year-Old Girl

The 2002 case was cold until a DNA sample was collected recently. Police say there may be more victims.

A man who allegedly kidnapped and raped a 12-year-old girl in 2002 while dressed as a clown was arrested today in Newport Beach, police said.

Jose Guadalupe Jimenez, 41, was taken into custody by Fullerton police on a warrant alleging two felony counts of lewd or lascivious acts with a minor, City News Service reported. 

Jimenez, who has been a professional clown for the last nine years and goes by the moniker "El Tin Larin,'' is accused of grabbing the girl at Lemon Street and Commonwealth Avenue in Fullerton just before midnight on Jan. 19, 2002, and driving her to a nearby school parking lot, where he raped her while wearing a clown mask and makeup, according to Fullerton police Sgt. Andrew Goodrich.

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Jimenez later took the girl to a motel on Harbor Boulevard and molested her again, but the girl was able to escape when he left the car to talk to the motel clerk, Goodrich said. 

The case went cold for years, but investigators got a break when Jimenez was arrested in 2010 and a DNA sample was collected, Goodrich said. That led to a DNA match in February to the evidence in the rape case, he said.

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Investigators said there may be more victims and encourage anyone with information about Jimenez to call Detective Kathryn Hamel of the Fullerton Police Department at (714) 738-5327.

City News Service contributed to this report.


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