Police Find East Hollywood Assault Suspect in North Hollywood

A 25-year-old man was arrested today on suspicion of attacking a woman in the laundry room of her apartment building east of Hollywood, police said.

Christian Yniguez was arrested around 12:30 p.m. in North Hollywood, according to an operator at the sheriff's Inmate Information Center.

He was booked on suspicion of assault with the intent to commit rape and was being held at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles in lieu of $1 million bail, said Officer Nuria Vanegas of the Los Angeles Police Department's Media Relations Section.

Yniguez is possibly a transient, according to CBS2. Vanegas said today was his birthday.

The attack happened around 7:45 p.m. Thursday in the 1400 block of North Edgemont Street, according to the LAPD.

The victim told police that she asked the man what he was doing in the apartment building, and he attacked her, but she fought him off, police said.

The woman was treated for scrapes and bruises, but did not require hospitalization. She told KCAL9 that she encountered the suspect in the first-floor laundry room of the secured building.

"There was an intruder in the building, and I asked him what he was doing here, and at that moment, he attacked me," she said. "(I've) never been hit before, and I've never had to defend myself."

The woman said she managed to call 911 during the confrontation, and when the man tried to take her cell phone away from her, she threw it under a washing machine to keep the call active.

"The LAPD was so amazing," she said. "(When) I escaped, they were literally out here already."

--City News Service