Watch CBS News

Man Charged With Child Sex Attack At San Leandro Walmart

SAN LEANDRO (CBS 5/BCN) -- A 29-year-old San Leandro man has been charged with sexual assaulting an 8-year-old girl inside a Walmart store, police said Monday.

Carlyle Villazon allegedly assaulted the girl after she became separated from her family during a Friday night shopping trip to the Walmart at 1919 Davis Street in San Leandro.

He was arrested after a pair of shoppers, Malcolm Mason and Dino Rinetti, chased him down and held him until police arrived.

The girl was taken to Children's Hospital in Oakland for forensic assault evaluation.

Police said Villazon is not a registered sex offender, but has prior arrest history for traffic violations and making terrorist threats.

Police said the 8-year-old victim was shopping with her family when she told her mother that her younger brother had disappeared and that she would go find him.

A short time later, the girl walked back to her mother in tears and told her that a man had and touched her inappropriately. She stuck her hand down her pants to demonstrate what the man had done to her, police said.

The victim's mother immediately alerted Walmart staff of the incident and both parties began searching for the man inside the store.

The girl spotted Villazon near the garden department and identified him to her mother. Police said that when Villazon caught the pair looking at him, he ran toward the main doors.

After he fled, her mother yelled, "somebody help, he touched my daughter," prompting Mason, who was shopping at the Walmart, to chase after Villazon, police said.

"The girl's mom was crying and the little girl was crying, and the mom pointed this guy out," Mason said. "I started walking toward him and he looked all reddish and nervous, then he started running."

Mason chased Villazon and pushed him to the ground just before he reached the exit doors, he said.

"He was about to get up out of there in about 10 yards," Mason said. "But he didn't get away, I held him right there until the police came."

Rinetti, the second good Samaritan, helped tackle Villazon and both men detained him until officers arrived about 15 minutes later, Mason said.

Villazon was arrested on charges of engaging in lewd acts with a child, aggravated sexual assault on a child and false imprisonment, police said.

This was the second case in recent weeks of a child being sexually assaulted while shopping with family members.

In Union City, 36-year-old Eugene Melendres Ramos is accused of raping a two-year-old inside a Dollar Tree store after she wandered an aisle over from where her grandmother and aunt were looking at Christmas items.

(Copyright 2010 by CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. Bay City News contributed to this report.)

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.