From top left clockwise: A Safeway in San Francisco, Calif. September 13, 2018. (Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle via AP). Stephen Masalta booking photo (Larimer County Jail). GoogleMaps image of Safeway in Colorado where Masalta once worked and is accused of exposing himself.
A former Safeway grocery store employee in Colorado already charged with over a dozen counts of indecent exposure after he was found allegedly masturbating outside of public businesses, is now accused of doing obscene things to food items that police said were “not commercially sealed” at his old job.
Stephen Masalta is currently detained at a jail in Larimer County and will go before a judge Friday for an advisement hearing, according to a review of the criminal court docket.
In a statement from the City of Fort Collins, Colorado, police said they began investigating reports of indecent exposure by a person showing up at local coffee shops to “perform obscene behavior” around or in front of employees, some of them minors.
Fort Collins Police Chief Jeff Swoboda explained in an update to the case against Masalta on Thursday that since his arrest in February and after a search warrant was executed on his home, investigators found videos in the property of Masalta masturbating and ejaculating on food at Safeway at 1426 East Harmony Road.
“As we went through the evidence we realized there had been many more crimes, and many more victims in our community,” Swodoba said Thursday.
Masalta worked there for two months and he “ejaculated and masturbated on multiple items of food and items of food that were not commercially sealed.”
There’s no doubt there will be more victims identified and there will be more charges, the police chief said.
Masalta was charged with 14 misdemeanor counts of indecent exposure, two counts of attempted indecent exposure, also a misdemeanor, four counts of misdemeanor attempted unlawful sexual contact and 16 counts of attempted sexual assault on a child.
It is unclear if he has retained an attorney.
Safeway did not immediately return a request for comment Friday.
