Crime Weekly - S3 Ep191: Crime Weekly News: Man Arrested for Defiling Food

Episode Date: March 20, 2024

32-year-old Stephen Masalta of Fort Collins, Colorado was arrested in February of 2023 after officials received reports of a man going to local coffee shops and performing obscene behavior around employees and customers. During an investigation, law enforcement discovered that Masalta had committed further crimes. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

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And I'm Stephanie Harlow. And before we start the show, exciting announcement. I know you guys have been waiting a while for this. Shout out Criminal Coffee right here. I'm drinking my criminal coffee right now. You can buy your coffee and your merchandise all under one site, all under one card at checkout. And if you're looking to combine the two, it's actually going to save you a little bit on shipping because the rates, the way they go based on weight. If you get your bag of coffee and you throw in a t-shirt or a sweatshirt instead of doing them separately, it's obviously going to save you a little bit of money. I want to say thank you to everyone for being patient. I really didn't get any complaints on it. You guys were buying a ton

of merch and buying a ton of coffee, never really complained. I want to thank the team that took care of it, Christina Hall and J&R Marketing, working together to get it done. Knock on wood, I'm hoping there's no kinks, but with anything new like this and it's logistically, there's a lot of moving parts. There you guys know that if you go on the website and you happen to see a specific size that's not in stock that you're looking to purchase, give it a week or two because we just put in a whole new big order of merchandise. So it should come in. And if you don't receive it by then, then email me or email JNR at hello at jnrmarketing.com. And we will get that shirt in or let you know at least when it's coming in. So again, thank you very much. We'll have a code relatively soon.

We're working on another big announcement that we'll have a code with it as well. And now going forward, those codes will work harmoniously with both the coffee and the merch all under one site like it should be. Stephanie didn't even know this till today because she's been busy all day. So now she knows as well. You can go get your

merch and coffee together, Stephanie. I know. I'm really excited about that. I'm excited that other people can get their merch and their coffee together because I'm very stacked up on merch and coffee. But it'll just be a lot easier. No, it's going to be it's a lot easier. It's going to be easier for us now as well to track it and make sure that you guys are getting what you need when you need it. And you're getting it at the best price that we can do based on how crazy shipping is right now. And this is the first of a few big announcements we're going to have this year. It's only it's early in the year, but we have some goals for criminal coffee. This was one of the biggest ones because it's something that should have been there already. And now we're working on a couple other things. Like I've been kind of hinting to that you guys really wanted that we've been working on behind closed doors. I just approved some artwork on it. So very shortly, we're going to have another big announcement and maybe one more by the end of the year. So stay tuned for that. That was all I really wanted

to cover before we dive into it. Thank you for the three minutes for anyone who is annoyed that I brought up criminal coffee again, but I tried to keep it concise. 32-year-old Steven Masalta of Fort Collins, Colorado was arrested in February of 2023 after officials received a report of a man going to a local coffee shop and performing obscene behavior around employees and customers. During an investigation, law enforcement discovered that Masalta had committed further crimes. And when I initially was reading this, this reminded me of a case that I worked as a sergeant where you go in there for something I don't want to say is not serious, but a little less dangerous or a little less

concerning. Obviously, we want to stop this type of behavior immediately, but it turns into something much bigger. We had an incident originally as a sergeant where we had a guy who was lighting mattresses on fire, and we got called there for that. And what we eventually found out is that this guy was a serial arsonist and he was responsible for multiple fires within our city. But again, it was a basic call of, hey, this guy's got a lighter out. He looks like he might be homeless and it looks like he's trying to set this mattress on fire. I don't know why he's doing it. But based on that call, based on our response and our ability to identify him, we made note of his clothing and we were able to connect it to other investigations where we had surveillance footage of an individual who was conducting multiple arsons. And through that

investigation and timing it up and seeing where he was located and how his home was in the vicinity of where all these fires had occurred, we were able to connect the crimes and eventually he actually confessed. So it worked out really great. And it's always nice when you have something like this, where again, it seems like on the surface, it may be just a basic routine call, but it turns into something that could potentially save multiple lives. And I always tried to instill this mentality in our patrolmen because when they would go to these calls for larcenies or something like this, you know, damaged property, I always told them to go there under the impression that the person you're dealing with may be connected to something

much larger. So it's always good to take good notes, be observative of your surroundings, and make sure you're treating that report with the seriousness that it needs to be taken with because down the road, that very report may tie in multiple felonies that can connect to this person. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, taking very detailed and specific reports is always going to be good. We've seen this multiple times. Unfortunately, look at the case with Gabby Petito. That's a great example. It's always best to do something when you feel something's not right. Even if it's a measure that you will later find wasn't necessary, at least you took it.

And if it had been necessary, then you could have prevented something even worse and more escalated from happening in the future. 100%. Investigatory reasons alone is enough to do it. There were times as a detective where I would have a potential suspect and I would punch their name in our internal database and we'd have an interaction with them maybe a week or two prior. And I'm like, oh, great. I'm going to find out where this person lives and all this stuff. And as soon as I go into the report, it's, you know, for whatever, a domestic dispute, whatever it might be. And the police officer who took the report at the time just did the bare minimum, just basically phoned it in. So I have basically a name, a date of birth, and they were both sent on their way or whatever the outcome of the investigation was. And it

drives me insane because now if they had done what they were supposed to do, I could have used that information for this murder investigation that I'm working. So again, that officer went in there at the time thinking it wasn't important. It was, you know, three, four in the morning, they're tired. They're just trying to get out of there. They phone it in essentially. And it ends up impeding my investigation down the road. So bigger lesson to be taken from this story. But why don't you give us the details on this one specifically? So it's a little different from what we usually cover, but it was discovered during the

investigation that Stephen Misalta had worked at the Safeway on East Harmony Road in Fort Collins, and he'd worked there for two months from December of 2023 until February of 2024. He's now facing 14 counts of indecent exposure, and he's under investigation for allegedly ejaculating on food while employed at the Safeway. Police Chief Jeff Swoboda said investigators found videos that showed Steven steven basalta doing this to multiple food items and the food was not commercially sealed oh i just i mean if anybody's in the fort collins area and you shopped at safeway in december of 2023 through december through february of 2024 i am so sorry yeah i'm so sorry There's no other way to say that.

I mean, and then it's not even just that, right? Because it's like now if you go shopping and buy food from anywhere, you're thinking, well, if this happened in Fort Collins at Safeway, could happen anywhere, anywhere. And, you know, there's crazy people out there. It is happening other places, guaranteed. Maybe to not this extreme, but it's definitely happening. And the police chief, Jeff Swabata, he said that investigators still have many more videos to go through. But the department believes there were multiple victims. I mean, I guess, yes, depending on the quantity that he dispersed and the number of times that he dispersed it. There could be just hundreds of people affected by this

and it's not just like oh that's gross he could have something a hundred percent yeah he could just in general it's it's like it's it's like a it's an assault of some kind to know that without your knowledge, without your consent, you consumed somebody's ejaculate. Yeah. That it's just it's such a boundary violation, such a just absolutely horrible. So they have many more videos to go through. Sorry to them.

But in a statement, Safeway spokesperson said the company is deeply concerned about the allegations and has been working with both the police and the health department. Overall, I mean, clearly we have these customers and workers at the coffee shop complaining about Stephen Masalta doing obscene things around them. And now you have, you know, during that investigation, you uncover that he's doing something, you know, I don't know what he was doing at the coffee shops, but arguably worse, something even worse before this even happened. And and how long has he been doing that? You know, where did he work before? The police are going to have to go through. Where did he work before December 2023?

Where did he work? You know, how long has he been doing this? He's 32 years old. Technically, he could have been doing this for decades if this is his thing. And they're going to have a lot of legwork to do to kind of track everything down. It's just gross and scary. Yeah, it's going to be interesting how they charge this one, because obviously every state is different. And so I'm not up to speed on Colorado's laws. But I was looking up an article from the Huffington Post where something similar, I guess, happened. And this was in Minnesota. It was not allowed to be considered a sex crime, which is interesting to me.

Why? Yeah, I'm asking myself the same question. But obviously, every state is different. And depending on the circumstances surrounding it, especially if this individual had an STD that we find out about, there could be something there because now it's actually a threat to these customers' health. So it's going to be interesting to see how it plays out. Obviously there's a crime there, tampering with food for sure. Why is it not a sex crime? That was just in Minnesota. But it's a crime there, tampering with food for sure. And then you have- Why is it not a sex crime? That was just in Minnesota. That was just in Minnesota.

But it's a sexual, Minnesota does not have it right because it's a sexual act. It's literally an act that is meant for procreation. So the act of what he did was of a sexual nature. How is that not a sex crime when you're forcing unwitting people to consume your ejaculate? How is that not a sex crime when you're forcing unwitting people to consume your ejaculate? How is that not a sex crime? If he walked up to somebody and did it all over their face, would it be a sex crime? Yes. I would hope so, Minnesota. I mean, I don't know, maybe Minnesota is very lax on their ejaculate laws. I don't know. Yeah. So I'm literally looking it up right now. And basically the

circumstances behind it was a colleague ejaculated into another colleague's coffee and the colleague drank it. And essentially the judge ruled that although the colleague consumed the substance, it didn't justify or qualify as a criminal sexual assault, even though, like I said, he drank tainted coffee, as it was described here. So it doesn't, Minnesota basically says law doesn't cover indirect bodily fluid contact. Now, again, it may be different in Colorado. I hope that it is. There's definitely crimes there. He's getting charged. He's not walking away from this. But the severity of those crimes. What's to stop him from doing it again, though?

I mean, I would hope based on this, he's not going to be allowed to work in another food operation. Yes, because. I mean, I would hope that would be pretty much ruled out during their background investigations that they conduct for these jobs. Literal like idiots like this have no self-control. He'll just figure out another way to like execute his plan. He'll like ejaculate preemptively and put it in like a little jar and then just start sprinkling it over people's food while he's like standing at the buffet line or something like people like this are not going to change. People like this are not going to be better.

They need to be watched. Honestly. Yeah. Obviously, they definitely needs to be somewhere, honestly. Yeah, obviously. He definitely needs to be somewhere, if not prison, a facility where he receives the mental health treatment that he needs.

Maybe a little chop-chop. Oh my God, it's tough. Take away his weapon, you know what I mean? Yeah, I've joked about it before as a police officer, and I'm not kidding completely. As a police officer, we're always very concerned about ordering food from a fast food restaurant. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it in uniform.

It's difficult. I was big on ordering from Subway because you go in there, you can watch them make your food and kind of monitor the process throughout the whole experience and where you go to like, I'm not going to say the restaurants to get anybody in trouble, but you go to a fast food chain, you order your food at one window and it comes out the next window. And what happens in between, you don't really know. So I always said, hey, listen, if you're ordering fast food like that, you just got to assume that someone who doesn't like cops is back there one of those times and they're going to get you back. they're going to get you

back. They're going to get you back. So just know that going into it. So try to avoid it. Obviously, I'm hoping and praying that someone who didn't like a police officer didn't go to this extreme in one of my cheeseburgers. But I mean, did you say in one of them? Yeah. In one of my cheeseburgers or on one of them. But I mean, it's between two buns. Yeah, because it's between two buns. I know I feel you. I mean, it's technically in.

Where are we going with this one, Stephanie? I don't know. But I've just, I gotta, I gotta. We gotta back out of this somehow. I just, I had a mental image of it in the burger, you know, like kind of like a. Like in the hamburger meat. Yeah. No, like, like on the, you know, on the on the burger, like a mayonnaise sort of situation.

Okay. I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. But you know you probably have. That is the worst part. You have to objectively and realistically. I'm hoping not to the extreme.

Again, I'm going to operate my life. You're being delusional. I'm going to operate my life not thinking that happened. I mean, that's what we have to do sometimes to survive. That's how I get by. I'm really hoping, for one, the customers involved with this, most of them are not going to be aware of it. There's going to be really very little way to track down. That's exactly why I wanted to talk about it, right?

Because I wouldn't have found it. It was so obscure. Yeah. I wouldn't have found it. So, like, if anybody's listening in the colorado area especially what was it fort collins in the fort collins area safe way okay safe way and what was the address of it east harmony road okay guys please and if you have call call the police let them know because i'm sure they want to be know. Because I'm sure they want to be tracking down victims. I'm sure they want to be tracking down people affected by this.

And there could be some class action lawsuit against Stephen Misalta. If criminally he's not held to task for this as deeply as you'd want him to be, as a person who's ingested his ejaculate without your consent, there could be a class action lawsuit about this. Because I'm sure if they call, if you call and you've shopped at Safeway and you bought food from Safeway, if you call the police, they'll probably tell you what food items were affected so that you can see if those were food items you bought. I don't know. And maybe they have, I don't know if they grabbed,

they had the security cameras from the act. I'm assuming they have security cameras on the windows. And maybe if the cameras are really good on the outside of the building, they're able to see license plates associated with customers who may have been directly affected. And if, by the way, they have that information, they should be reaching out to those customers. Yes. Absolutely. That would be a good thing to do. The customers shouldn't have to do the investigation themselves. And I hope that this is an isolated incident and it doesn't

affect too many people. 14 counts of indecent exposure doesn't seem like enough. And hopefully there's more that comes from this. I also know that the police department, or I should say the court, can order this individual to submit to a round of sexually STD testing where he'll be full. This happens a lot with assault cases where the suspect bleeds on a victim or something. The courts can order that to ensure that there's not a bigger issue here. So I'm hoping at this point that has already been done and they were able to confirm that this individual does not have any sexually transmitted diseases that could affect these customers long term. And if we have any more updates with it, we'll obviously let you guys know. I wish I had better advice as far as how to deal with this. Unfortunately, we only buy sealed food, but I mean, even then, we always try

to leave you guys with a little bit of advice. There's really not much on this one. It's just about being aware of your surroundings, choosing restaurants that you're familiar with. If you can get out of the vehicle, go in and order your food. With most restaurants, you can see your food being made. It takes an extra two or three minutes, but it ensures that the food is safely being cooked and prepared properly. So if this is something that you're concerned about, that one extra step could prevent something like this from happening to you. But overall, we're going to stay up to date on the case.

Hopefully there's more charges brought. Hopefully everyone who's affected by this is healthy and safe and is financially compensated for what they've had to endure, what they've had to experience. And if there's any new updates in this case, we will obviously let you guys know. Any final words from you, Stephanie Harlow? I think I've said enough words today.

You did great. You did great. We're going to be back later this week with the fifth and final part of the Roden Family Massacre. The series has been going great. You guys have been responding to it well. So if you want to join us on Friday for audio, we will be back to wrap up that case. And if you're watching on YouTube, we will be with you on Sunday. So everyone stay safe out

there. We will see you soon. Take care. Bye. Thank you.