ELLISVILLE, Mo. — A man was charged with statutory sodomy Monday for an incident that happened several years ago, and police are asking if anyone else was victimized or may be aware of other victims to give them a call.
Michael Bakale, a 37-year-old St. Louis man, was charged with second-degree sodomy for an alleged October 2016 encounter with a girl who was 15 at the time.
According to a search warrant from the Ellisville Police Department, an 18-year-old woman came to their detectives in 2019 to report a sexual encounter she had with Bakale at a motel in Chesterfield years earlier.
She told police she first started chatting with Bakale through the app Whisper before switching over to Snapchat. According to the search warrant, she showed screenshots of the chats, which police said were benign at first but quickly became sexual.
The search warrant said the girl told Bakale that she was 15 multiple times and offered to prove it, but Bakale said "that's not necessary why would I care?"
She told police they eventually met up at a motel near Chesterfield Mall where she performed a sex act on him, the search warrant said.
Police said the number associated with the Snapchat account matched that of Bakale, and the victim identified him in a photo lineup.
In their press release, Ellisville police asked anyone else who was victimized by Bakale or might know of other victims to call them at 636-227-7777.