UCLA campus housing sexual assault suspect pleads not guilty

If convicted as charged, Jeffery Stott Brewer Jr. could face a maximum of 31 years to life in state prison, according to the District Attorney's Office.

A 41-year-old man has been charged with breaking into a UCLA student housing apartment unit occupied by two female exchange students and sexually assaulting one of them.

Jeffery Stott Brewer Jr. pleaded not guilty Tuesday to one count each of sexual penetration by use of force and first-degree residential burglary with person present, along with an allegation that he committed the sexual assault during the commission of a burglary, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

Authorities believe Brewer entered the room at about 2:40 a.m. last Friday at Saxon Residential Suites on the 300 block of De Neve Drive, an apartment-style student housing complex on the northwest portion of UCLA known as the Hill. He allegedly sexually assaulted the victim while she was in bed, according to a statement from the UCLA Police Department.

He had allegedly loitered outside the same student housing building just over an hour earlier before entering one of the residences, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. He allegedly knocked on one of the apartment doors, entered when a student opened the door and then departed when two students asked him to leave, the District Attorney’s Office said.

Brewer was arrested at 9:44 p.m. Friday by the UCLA Police Department and remains behind bars in lieu of $1.15 million bail, jail records show.

He is due back at the Airport Courthouse in Los Angeles Aug. 13. A date is scheduled to be set then for a hearing to decide whether there is sufficient evidence to allow the case against him to proceed to trial.

If convicted as charged, he could face a maximum of 31 years to life in state prison, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

In a statement announcing the charges, District Attorney George Gascón said, “The brutal and violent sexual assault experienced by this survivor at the hands of the alleged suspect is profoundly disturbing and will not be tolerated.”