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HOME > So You Think You Can Dance > So You Think You Can Dance 4Ex-'Dance' choreographer Alex Da Silva charged with sexual assault
Four months after determining it didn't currently have enough evidence to charge him, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office has charged former So You Think You Can Dance choreographer Alex Da Silva with eight felony sexual-assault charges.
Los Angeles police arrested Da Silva at his North Hollywood home this morning and he is being held on $6.2 million bail, according to the Times. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday.
Da Silva, a 41-year-old who teaches at several Los Angeles dance studios and bills himself as "one of L.A.'s premiere salsa personalities," was originally arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting four of his former dance students in early April. The arrest occurred after several previous sexual assault accusations against him. Three different women had previously accused Da Silva of sexually assaulting them in 2003, 2004 and 2005, but prosecutors had ultimately decided against filing charges in each case. However detectives re-interviewed the previous accusers after a fourth woman made similar accusations against Da Silva on March 28 and discovered the women's accounts all contained similar details, resulting in the earlier cases being re-opened and police arresting him on suspicion of sexual assault on April 4. Da Silva was then held on $3.8 million bail until April 7, when the district attorney's office decided there was not enough evidence to pursue sexual-assault charges against him at the time. According to his fourth accuser, Da Silva lured her into his home and then raped her after getting her into his bedroom. "These four women don't know each other at all, yet their reports read basically the same," Los Angeles Police Department detective John Eum told The Associated Press at the time. "We're almost sure there are probably other victims out there and we hope they'll come forward." Da Silva served as a So You Think You Can Dance choreographer for the dance competition's first four seasons. He did not participate in this summer's recently-concluded fifth edition. |
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