PLEASANTON — A Livermore man has been charged with two misdemeanors for allegedly grabbing a woman from an adjacent bathroom stall, pulling her to the ground, touching her private parts and scratching her leg after she caught him filming her while urinating, according to court records.
Jesus Castro-Leon, 26, was charged on Feb. 16 with one count of sexual battery and one count of invasion of privacy, both misdemeanors, in connection with the the Dec. 1, 2023 incident. Castro-Leon has been released from jail without having to post bail and is next due in court on March 11, court records show.
Asked why prosecutors viewed it as misdemeanor conduct, a spokesperson for Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price commented only that “all public information available on this case can be found at the county courthouse,” without leaving a name.
Castro-Leon is accused of following a woman into the women’s restroom of a Pleasanton grocery store on Bernal Avenue, reaching his cellphone under the stall and then attacking her after she kicked the phone out of his hand. According to police, he pulled her to the ground while her pants were still down, touched her genitals and scratched her leg, causing an injury.
He was identified from surveillance footage, but police had help from the local business community. A Target manager informed investigators that Castro-Leon had been kicked out of a nearby Target for following women around the store and taking pictures of them, authorities said. After police put images of security footage from the grocery store incident on social media, they say several more tipsters came forward with similar stories of Castro-Leon allegedly following female customers around stores and photographing or filming them.
Last January, Castro-Leon willingly came in to the Pleasanton Police Department for an interview, and identified himself as the person involved in the grocery store incident, prosecutors allege. But when officers told him they wished to take him to an interview room, he refused to go, argued with officers and was arrested on suspicion of resisting arrest, according to police. He has not been charged with resisting or obstructing officers.
After Castro-Leon’s arrest, police searched his phone. They say they found more than 250 videos of Castro-Leon “following women around stores, recording their buttocks.”