Federal prosecutors say at least twenty women were victimized by a former suburban St. Louis police officer who used routine traffic stops as a cover to search their cellphones for nude photos and sexually explicit videos. The admission came in a plea agreement filed Tuesday, in which 30-year-old former Florissant officer Julian Alcala pleaded guilty to 20 misdemeanor counts of willfully violating women’s constitutional rights.
The victims — women who believed they were turning over their phones to verify insurance or registration — had no idea that their private images were being accessed, photographed, and, in at least one case, texted directly to the officer himself. Each count of Alcala’s plea represents a woman whose privacy he violated under the guise of routine policing.
According to court documents, the abuse began in February 2024, when Alcala stopped a woman and took her phone back to his patrol car. Instead of checking her insurance, he searched through her photos, found a sexually explicit video, and texted it to his own device. He also photographed a nude image he found stored on her phone. Unbeknownst to her, she became the first of many victims.
Over the following three months, prosecutors say Alcala repeated the pattern with nineteen other women — each time removing their phones under an official pretense, then scrolling through their private content in his cruiser. Many of the women remain unnamed in court filings, but investigators say each was left vulnerable in a moment that should have been governed by trust and public safety.
It was the first woman, however, who ultimately uncovered the misconduct. After reviewing her deleted texts, she discovered that a video of her engaged in sexual activity had been sent to an unfamiliar number — a number later traced to Alcala. Realizing the gravity of the violation, she reported it to the FBI.
Federal agents then executed a search warrant, recovering the images Alcala had taken from women during stops across the region. Investigators have not said whether all twenty women have been identified or notified, but the plea agreement makes clear that the officer’s misconduct was systematic.
Alcala faces up to a year in prison for each misdemeanor count, though the final sentence will be determined on March 11. Prosecutors agreed to drop a felony obstruction charge as part of the plea deal. For the women involved, the case represents both a violation of their privacy and a breach of trust by someone sworn to protect them.
Their images, their autonomy, and their dignity were taken without consent — and their courage in coming forward, starting with the first victim, ensured the conduct was exposed.
