VENTURA : Professional Surfers Accused in Assault

Two professional surfers who were in Ventura for a surfing competition were arrested Friday morning on suspicion of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old Ventura girl, police said.

Nicholas Steven Brown, 21, of Hermosa Beach, and Dean Anthony Randazzo, 23, of Oceanside, were arrested at the Motel 6 on Harbor Boulevard about 3:30 a.m.

Brown and Randazzo are competitors in a professional surfing competition running from Wednesday through Sunday at Surfers Point, a stretch of beach adjacent to Seaside Park on Figueroa Street.

The men are suspected of having unlawful sexual intercourse and unlawful oral copulation with a person under 18, Ventura Police Detective Douglas Auldridge said.

The girl said she consented to have sexual intercourse with both men, but that they forced her to engage in oral sex, Auldridge said.

The events allegedly occurred in Brown and Randazzo’s motel room and in a car between about 9 and 11 p.m. Thursday, Auldridge said. The girl did not report the incident to police until about midnight, after she had gone home and told her parents, Auldridge said.

Officers arrested the men in their motel room, Auldridge said. Two other surfers were sharing the room with Brown and Randazzo, but both they and the girl told police they had not been involved in, or aware of, the alleged sexual assault.

As of Friday night, the two men were still being held at Ventura County Jail. Bail was set at $10,000 for each of them, a jail spokesman said.