A former nursing home janitor with a foot fetish has been convicted after he sexually assaulted a 69-year-old woman by massaging her feet with lotion and repeatedly pressing her feet with his genitals.
In a September 8 statement, District Attorney J. Collins Sims said that the convicted man, identified as Bobby Mendell Bester, 47, was working as a janitor at a nursing home when he sexually assaulted a 69-year-old resident of the facility.
The incident is said to have occurred at a nursing home on Robert Boulevard in March 2018, and the Slidell Police Department was notified of the sexual assault. Officers who responded to the scene spoke with the 69-year-old resident after the facility’s administrator identified her to them.
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The victim told the officers that she was lying in her room when Bester entered, adding that the convicted man made a statement about her socks falling off, the statement said. Bester is said to have then proposed to wear it back for her.
“Bester closed the room’s door and window blinds. He produced some lotion and massaged the victim’s feet while asking her if she was ticklish,” the statement said. “He began tickling her feet and pressed her feet against his genitals several times. Whenever footsteps were heard outside the room, Bester stopped what he was doing.”
Initial attempts to locate Bester proved futile, though detectives had a warrant for his arrest. Authorities ultimately arrested him in February 2024. And though Bester admitted to having a foot fetish during questioning, he denied sexually assaulting the victim, the statement said.
The victim and another woman took the stand during his trial. The other woman told the jury that in 2007, she was working as a real estate agent around Northshore when Bester called her and pretended to be an interested buyer, the statement said.
Bester and the woman subsequently had multiple phone conversations before he “told the woman he actually was not interested in buying any real estate but was instead interested in taking her out to dinner on a date.”
The woman is said to have “politely declined” Bester’s offer and asked him not to get in touch with her again. But Bester did not stop calling the woman, and he even left a “recorded message that the woman later provided to law enforcement,” per the statement.
“In the message, Bester says, ‘Can I (masturbate) on your feet? I know you got sexy feet. Can I just suck on it or something?’” the statement added. “On another occasion, Bester told the woman over the phone ‘I like that pink toenail polish you have on.’ Being that she was wearing open-toed shoes and pink toenail polish at that moment, the woman became concerned the defendant was following her and reported the defendant to the police.”
Bester faces between 25 and 99 years in prison, and he’s scheduled to be sentenced on October 23.
