A Sacramento man is due in Yolo Superior Court later this month to find out whether he will face prosecution for allegedly secretly filming women and girls in the bathroom of a Woodland church.
Woodland police arrested 23-year-old Stephen William Masalta on April 22, a day after a search of his Howe Avenue apartment revealed multiple electronic storage devices with video dating back about four months, Sgt. Brett Hancock said Thursday.
Currently free on $20,000 bail, Masalta has a scheduled court date of May 22. The Yolo County District Attorney’s Office is reviewing the case and has not yet made a charging decision, Chief Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Raven said.
According to Hancock, Masalta, formerly of Woodland, was serving as a musician for the New Life Community Church, 601 Walnut St., when a pastor reported on April 5 that a female church member had discovered a cell phone concealed inside a tissue box in the women’s bathroom.
On the phone was “a surreptitious recording of several adult and juvenile females inside the bathroom stall over about a two-hour time frame,” as well as information leading investigators to Masalta, Hancock said.
Detectives served a search warrant Masalta’s apartment on the evening of April 21, seizing several electronic storage devices found on the premises.
Upon examining those devices, “they found that this had been happening over the past four months,” involving a total of 20 girls and women whose ages range from 4 to 60, Hancock said. Seven of them are juveniles.
All but one of the alleged victims had been identified and notified as of late this week, he added. Hancock also noted that the video appears to be isolated to the New Life church and did not take place elsewhere.
“This is not something that he’s been doing for a long time,” Hancock said.
John Gallegos, senior pastor at New Life, declined to comment at length about the case Thursday but said church officials have cooperated with the investigation.
“The privacy interests of the victims must be respected, and the criminal case against Mr. Masalta must be allowed to take its course,” Gallegos said. “Be assured that we will continue to cooperate with the Woodland Police Department in any way possible and do the very best we can to assist the victims as they recover.”
Efforts to reach Masalta for comment on Thursday were unsuccessful.
He was taken into custody the morning after the apartment search following an interview at the Woodland police station, booking him into the Yolo County Jail on suspicion of eavesdropping and sexual exploitation of a child, both felonies, as well as a misdemeanor count of using a concealed camera to record someone in a state of undress inside a bathroom, according to Hancock. He posted bail later that day.
Hancock said the investigation of the case is ongoing, and anyone with additional information is urged to call Woodland Police Department detectives at 530-661-7827.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene