Annandale, Va. rape suspect faced charges, mental health concerns in the past

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) — A Fairfax County rape suspect the police chief referred to as “pure evil” had faced numerous criminal charges in the county in the past five years, but most of them were never prosecuted.

After being captured this past Friday, 24-year old Kevin Lopez Altan was charged with several serious crimes, including raping a 59-year-old woman multiple times last Wednesday. Police said he also allegedly tried to sexually assault a community college student the next night. Police say both crimes happened in Annandale.

7News researched and found over the past five years Lopez Altan has been charged with a total of nine felonies and about 10 misdemeanors.

The Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute most of those charges, including some that involved assaults on law enforcement and disarming officers of their stun guns.

“Any decision to dismiss a charge is based on the individual fact pattern of the case and can depend on a wide range of factors,” a spokesperson for Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano wrote 7News in an email.

Four of the cases did result in either a plea agreement and/or a guilty conviction, although besides being fined Lopez Altan was never sentenced to anything but a 30-day suspended jail sentence.

Most of the charges against Altan over the last few years stem from just a few incidents, one of which happened in 2021. Court records indicate there were numerous delays in the case resulting from that incident, some of them stemming from questions over whether Lopez Altan was mentally competent to stand trial. Family members tell 7 News he spent many months in a mental health treatment facility.

“In 2022, charges were dropped after a judge denied the Commonwealth’s motion to continue the case; with no witnesses present, there was no path to continue prosecution,” Descano’s office wrote to 7News.

In another case, Descano’s office agreed to a plea agreement in which Lopez Altan pled no contest to an assault on his mother. As part of the agreement, several charges were dropped, including one for assault on law enforcement and multiple charges that Lopez Altan disarmed officers of their stun guns.

“Following an arrest in 2023, the defendant entered a plea agreement in Fairfax’s Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court,” read a statement from Descano’s office. “Some charges from that same incident were dismissed as part of the agreement, which sought to get the defendant appropriate mental health treatment.”

Descano’s office says it is taking the current charges very seriously: “The current charges against the defendant are extremely serious and will be handled in a manner befitting the facts of the case.”

Lopez Altan’s mother tells 7News he has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and the system has often failed him to get the mental health help he needs. She says when Lopez Altan gets medication every few weeks, he functions well, but recently he was not on his medication.