A former Missouri police officer and a former Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper have been indicted separately on federal charges accusing them of taking nude images from women’s phones during traffic stops, CNN reports. The defendants are Julian Alcala, a 29-year-old former police officer in Florissant, and David McKnight, a 39-year-old former state trooper. The FBI said the two cases are not connected, describing the similarities as “a matter of coincidence.” In both cases, federal prosecutors allege the officers asked women for their phones – ostensibly to check their insurance coverage, vehicle registration or identification – and then searched the phones for nude images. In two cases, McKnight also took the phones of alleged victims after arresting them.
The officers used their personal cell phones to take photos of nude images they found – often images of the women, but in a few cases images of other people, the indictments say. Images of the nude photos were found on the men’s phones and on Alcala’s iCloud account. The attorney for one of Alcala’s alleged victims has said she reported an incident to the FBI, and one of McKnight’s alleged victims has said she reported him to his supervisor. Alcala is accused of searching and taking images from the cell phones of 20 women between February 6 and May 18. McKnight is accused of searching nine women’s cell phones – and taking images from at least seven – between September 2023 and August 2024. Each man is charged with one count of destroying records in a federal investigation and multiple counts of deprivation of the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.