The suit says Alcala took her phone to his patrol car, found nude photos of her on her phone and took pictures of them with his phone. — Photo by Michael Förtsch on Unsplash
ST. LOUIS COUNTY: A former Florissant cop was sued on Oct 22 for stealing nude photos from women during traffic stops, the third such suit filed in recent weeks.
Tuesday’s suit, however, was filed in federal court and is the first to name an officer.
In the new suit, a St. Louis County woman identified by the initials G.E.S. accuses former Florissant cop Julian Alcala of pulling her over on two separate occasions earlier this year for a broken taillight. It says Alcala took her phone to his patrol car, found nude photos of her on her phone and took pictures of them with his phone.
The suit says Alcala shared those photos with others. Lawyers who filed the suit, W. Bevis Schock and Daniel Goldberg, wrote that they believe there are at least seven other victims.
“Plaintiff has suffered shocking degradation and egregious humiliation,” the suit says.
Schock did not immediately return a call for comment.
The two other suits, filed in state court by attorney Rick Voytas on behalf an anonymous woman and an anonymous teenager, contain almost identical allegations.
All three women said in their lawsuits that they did not know their nude photos had been taken until each one was approached by FBI agents who are investigating the officer.
Public records show Alcala, 29, was born in Texas and has lived in Herculaneum since 2022. Before that, he briefly lived in Hillsboro. He is also married to a woman from Hillsboro.
He was hired by the Florissant Police Department in January 2023 as a probationary officer while he completed the police academy at Jefferson College in Hillsboro, which confirmed he graduated in summer 2023. He was sworn in as an officer in the beginning of July that year, according to an open records request with the city.
His last day with the Florissant police was June 6. The city did not specify if he resigned or was fired.
Alcala could not be reached Tuesday for comment.
Missouri’s Peace Officer Standards and Training said on Tuesday he had permanently surrendered his Class A peace officer license.
A Florissant Police Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tuesday’s suit comes about five weeks after two people – a woman and a teenage girl – filed separate suits against a Florissant officer and the city of Florissant. Both filed under pseudonyms and did not name the officer because at the time of filing they did not know the officer’s name.
In both suits, Voytas, the women’s lawyer, describes almost identical experiences in which they claim the officer stole nude photos off their phones during traffic stops. The teen and woman were separately approached by the FBI months after their traffic stops and were asked to identify themselves in the nude photos police had taken from the officer.
Since those lawsuits were featured in news reports, Voytas said he’s received dozens of calls from other potential victims and has referred them to the St. Louis FBI field office.
In the first lawsuit, filed in mid-September by Jane and John Doe, Voytas said his client was pulled over in February and thought it was odd the cop asked her to unlock her phone to see her insurance card, then took her phone back to his car – for 10 minutes.
Five months later, FBI agents contacted her. They had found a nude photo of her, they told her. She said it was something she’d only shared with her husband. They said the Florissant cop went through her phone during that February traffic stop stole the images and shared them with multiple people.
The suit said they had reason to believe there are more photos, other cops involved and more victims.
“The officer in question is no longer employed by the City of Florissant and there is no indication that any other member of the Florissant Police Department was involved in the alleged misconduct,” the agency wrote on Facebook at the time the suit was filed.
The second lawsuit was filed soon after and said a teen who lives near Florissant was pulled over by the office on the afternoon of May 18.
The teen claimed the cop told her that her “plates didn’t match” and asked if she had insurance. He then told her she needed to show him proof of insurance on her phone.
When the teen replied that she didn’t keep proof of insurance on her phone, the officer told her to unlock the device anyway and then took it back to his patrol car for at least 10 minutes.
She said the officer returned with her phone, did not issue a ticket and drove away.
FBI agents contacted the teen in July, the suit said. They asked her to identify herself in a nude photo and told her they found it in the officer’s possession.
The teen’s lawsuit also claims the city ignored previous, unspecified earlier complaints about the officer that they said were “red flags”.
In Tuesday’s suit, G.E.S. said Alcala asked for her proof of insurance during both stops. She told the officer her insurance card was saved on her phone, and he “demanded that she open her phone and she complied”.
“On the phone G.E.S. had several pictures of herself wholly unclothed, including pictures of her most private parts,” the suit says.
A few weeks before these two lawsuits were filed, a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper was charged with similar accusations in two counties about three hours south of St. Louis.
That trooper, David McKnight, faces six felony charges of invasion of privacy in two separate criminal cases – one in New Madrid County and one in Scott County.
A woman complained to the MSHP on July 30, claiming that a trooper took her cellphone to his car during a traffic stop and had searched through her photos and Snapchat account, a probable cause statement said. He, like the unnamed cop in Florissant, is accused of taking the phone under the pretense of viewing her digital insurance card.
Investigators viewed his in-car and body camera footage “which led them to believe” that McKnight used his personal cellphone to take pictures of people’s phones.
At least 15 images of nude or partially nude people were found on his phone during a search, police wrote. Six victims were identified, and the first incident reportedly happened in September 2023.
Media outlets reported that he resigned from the agency on Sept 9. – The St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Tribune News Service
