A 27-year-old man suspected of sexually assaulting a Lake Elsinore girl was behind bars Friday.
Thomas Joseph Hernandez of Lake Elsinore was arrested and booked into the Byrd Detention Center in Murrieta Thursday on suspicion of statutory rape, sexual penetration with a foreign object and using an underage person to make pornography.
Hernandez is being held on $55,000 bail.
According to Riverside County sheriff’s Jeff Reese, investigators learned of the alleged illicit encounters between the suspect and victim, whose identity was not released, after unnamed parties alerted them in recent weeks.
Sufficient evidence was gathered to justify an arrest warrant, and Hernandez was taken into custody without incident about 6 p.m. Thursday on Westlynn Drive, Reese said.
The circumstances behind the alleged offenses, including how Hernandez and the victim met, were not disclosed. The girl’s age was not disclosed.
Background information on the suspect also was not available.