A 28-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting four men after luring them to his apartment in Escondido via the dating app Grindr, where he was posing as a white man under a fake name, police said Saturday.
Over the past four months, police received reports of four men who chatted with another male via the LGBTQ+ dating app and agreed to meet at his apartment in the city, according to the Escondido Police Department.
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Police say that when the men arrived at the residence, the man who answered the door was not the same person from the Grindr profile. He told the victims that the man they were there to meet was his roommate but was not home.
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Police said the victims were then forcibly restrained and sexually assaulted. Two of the victims allegedly witnessed the suspect with a handgun.
On Friday, detectives from the Escondido PD, assisted by members of a SWAT team, served a search warrant and arrested Tobias Bartee at his residence.
"The suspect was using photographs of other people and portraying them as himself," police said.
Bartee was arrested on suspicion of kidnap with intent to commit rape, sodomy by force, oral copulation by force, assault with intent to commit rape and strangulation.
Police urged anyone who may have been a victim of Bartee to contact Detective Jesse Santaniello at 760-839-4768.
