A Southern California maintenance worker is accused by prosecutors of using social media to steal underwear and electronics from dozens of college women during a 2015 crime spree.
Arturo Galvan, 44, of Menifee, California, pleaded not guilty Tuesday in Orange County Superior Court to 33 felony burglary counts related to a rash of robberies, the O.C. Register reported.
Police claim the married father of three stalked potential victims over social media and used geolocation data embedded within Instagram and Facebook photos to pinpoint where they lived.
“He was able to openly browse the different social media platforms and find photographs,” Fullerton Police Sgt. Kathryn Hamel told ABC News. “He would then collect the GPS coordinates from those photos [and] then place them onto a map and drive to his victims’ locations.”
Mr. Galvan was initially arrested in December on suspicion of burglary, receiving stolen property, peeping and prowling after he was spotted leering through the window of a house in Fullerton. He was released after posting $200,000 bail, but police argued last month that he posed a immediate danger to the community and a judge boosted his bail to $1 million. He had been in custody ever since.
After he was arrested in December, authorities found a cache of women’s underwear in his garage and a collection of stolen laptops and other electronics valued at more than $250,000.
Prosecutors say Galvan would scout out women he saw in public before attempting to locate them over social media. Twenty-five of the victims were students at Chapman University and eight were enrolled at California State University, Fullerton, police said.
“To Galvan it was more than money,” Sgt. Hamel told My Valley News this week. “These were women he wanted to get to know.”
Mr. Galvan, who faces a maximum sentence of 50 years in state prison if convicted on all counts, is scheduled to next appear in court on March 22.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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