A man police say grabbed a UC Berkeley student on campus earlier this month is heading for trial.
On March 14, officers were dispatched shortly after 8 p.m. to investigate a report of a man who had followed two students on the UC Berkeley campus.
One of the students told police the stranger had followed her and a friend from Wurster Hall through the Haas School of Business to Bowles Hall, police said.
When the students were near the business school, the man got closer and grabbed her buttocks, she told the University of California Police Department.
The students sought safety inside and called police as the stranger continued to follow them, according to authorities.
But, when police arrived, the man was gone.
Police began searching for him with the help of video footage, UCPD said.
Jonathan Rosales Contreras. ACSO
About an hour later, a student called police from the Clark Kerr Campus to say a stranger was loitering inside the building after following her from a sorority in the Southside neighborhood.
He was identified as Jonathan Rosales Contreras, a 20-year-old San Leandro man, and arrested.
On March 17, the Alameda County district attorney’s office charged Rosales with one count of misdemeanor sexual battery.
He entered a not-guilty plea and was released on $15,000 bail.
Rosales, whose last name is also listed as Contreras, is set for a readiness hearing, to prepare for trial, April 2, according to court records.
He has several other local arrests listed in public records but no other charged criminal cases.
