LACEY, Wash. – Prosecutors say surveillance video shows an elementary-school custodian grabbing a 10-year-old girl’s buttocks at a Lacey grocery store last Sunday.
The man, whom Q13 News is not naming because he hasn’t been charged, was in court Monday after the alleged incident at the Safeway at 1243 Marvin Rd. NE.
The Olympian reports he has been placed on administrative leave from his job as a night custodian at Lacey’s Mountain View Elementary, and that he previously held the same position at Seven Oaks Elementary and River Ridge High School.
Charging documents allege that, after the girl left the store with her mother Sunday, she told her mother that a man had grabbed her twice. According to prosecutors, surveillance video is poorly angled in one instance, but clearly backs up the girl’s allegations in the other.
Police were able to track the man down because he used his Safeway club card to buy a six-pack of beer. The matched the name on the club card to a picture on Facebook, and said that when they talked to him he admitted he’d brushed the girl but denied grabbing her.
Arraignment is scheduled for May 24.