A former Missouri police officer was indicted on Wednesday on charges of unlawfully searching 20 women’s cellphones to obtain nude images during traffic stops, the authorities said.
And in an unrelated case, a former Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper this week also faced the same charges.
In the latest case, the former officer, Julian Alcala, 29, while employed by the Florissant Police Department in Eastern Missouri, searched the victims’ phones between February and May of this year under the guise of checking the drivers’ insurance or registration, the U.S. Justice Department said.
With his own cellphone, Mr. Alcala took photos of explicit images that he found on the drivers’ phones. During one stop, he sent himself a text message of a video before attempting to delete evidence of the text, according to the Justice Department.
Mr. Alcala pleaded not guilty in court on Friday to 21 charges — one count of destroying records in a federal investigation and 20 of deprivation of rights; namely, that someone be free from unreasonable search and seizure. He was released on bond.
In one case, Mr. Alcala “found a video depicting Confidential Victim 1 engaged in sexual activity, and sent the video via text message and the iCloud from Confidential Victim 1’s cellphone to his personal cellphone,” according to court records.
The Florissant Police Department said in a statement that the F.B.I. informed it of an investigation into Mr. Alcala in June, at which point he resigned from the department.
“We are disgusted at this behavior, which is a complete betrayal of the values we uphold and in no way reflects the professionalism and integrity of our dedicated officers,” the statement said.
The statement also said that Mr. Alcala was employed by the department for 11 months in Florissant, a city of about 50,000 people about 13 miles northwest of St. Louis. During his time on the force, it said, no complaints or accusations of misconduct were filed against him.
A lawyer for Mr. Alcala said on Saturday that he was reviewing the indictment.
In addition to the criminal charges, Mr. Alcala faces lawsuits by people accusing him of misconduct.
J.C. Pleban, who represents four plaintiffs, said that Mr. Alcala took images from five victims on Feb. 11 alone.
He added that there were no apparent commonalities among the drivers, but they each described eerie encounters where, for example, Mr. Alcala took an unusual amount of time in his cruiser with their phones.
“Every client that I talked to, every story’s the same — ‘I had such a weird feeling,’” Mr. Pleban said on Saturday. He said that one client looked at her phone after the traffic stop and found evidence of a deleted text message and contacted the F.B.I.
Mr. Pleban also represents a client in a separate suit with startling similarities.
On Tuesday, a former Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper, David McKnight, 39, was indicted and accused of searching women’s cellphones during traffic stops to search for nude images, according to the Justice Department.
Aside from the charges, the two cases appear to have no connection, Mr. Pleban said.
According to the indictment, Mr. McKnight took images from nine different women between September 2023 and August 2024.
Most of the episodes happened during traffic stops, and he took their phones under the pretense of checking insurance information or identification.
Mr. McKnight pleaded not guilty on Thursday in federal court. A lawyer representing Mr. McKnight did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
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