Police arrested 36-year-old Calese Crowder in Glendale following allegations of invading a woman's privacy at a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Burbank earlier in the week.
The incident came to light after video footage circulated on social media, prompting the victim, TikToker Michaela Witter, to report it directly to authorities.
Witter, who has over 65,000 followers and hosts a series called "Solo Dates" aimed at activities for women to enjoy alone, described feeling stalked as the man followed her movements throughout the store.
"It felt like anywhere I moved, he kept following me," Witter said.
She began recording him for her safety, capturing a moment where he crouched down near her legs.
When confronted, he claimed he was tying his shoes, but Witter believed he was smelling her from behind. Reviewing the footage later, she noticed him approaching another woman in a similar manner.
"He'll crouch down, pretend like he's looking at something on one of the shelves, turn and then it looks like he's smelling her," she said. Disturbed by the encounter, Witter added, "He was literally like a foot away from me. Underneath me. It was really disturbing to watch back."
Investigators revealed that Crowder has a extensive criminal history dating back to 2011, including peeping, prowling, residential burglaries, and multiple arrests for lewd conduct.
He had previously served eight years in prison and was a registered sex offender.
The video also caught the attention of former Los Angeles Lakers player Robert Horry, whose wife Candice posted on social media that Crowder had stalked their teenage daughter at home over a decade ago.
"This man stalked my teenage daughter at our home over 10 years ago," she wrote. "He went to jail only to come out and continue the same behavior."
Witter expressed relief at his arrest, saying, "Maybe we can go in those areas and feel safe again knowing that he's at least arrested."
Since sharing the video, which garnered over 5 million views on TikTok, Witter heard from about two dozen women claiming similar encounters with the same man.
"I'm glad I did catch it on camera because now so many people have come to me, saying that they recognize the guy, that the same thing happened to them," she said. "At least his name is out there, his face is out there so people can be aware and cautious."
Despite the arrest, Crowder appeared in court the following Monday and pleaded no contest to separate peeping and prowling charges, resulting in a 60-day county jail sentence.
He was released shortly after, which Witter found discouraging.
"There isn't any protection for us," she said. However, his freedom was short-lived.
By 2025, now 38 years old and still on parole, Crowder was arrested again in Burbank after reports of suspicious behavior in the women's section of a Nordstrom Rack at the Empire Center. Surveillance footage explicitly showed him crouching behind a woman and sniffing her buttocks, leading to charges of loitering with intent to commit a crime.
Officers located him nearby at a Walmart and took him into custody.
Witter, reflecting on her past experience, commented, "I feel like the justice system is just neglecting everything. It’s crazy to think that someone like this, who’s constantly stalking and violating these people, is allowed to be out and about."
Crowder's pattern of behavior continued unabated.
Just weeks later, in August 2025, he was re-arrested for a similar incident at a Walgreens in Burbank, where he allegedly followed a woman, crouched down, and sniffed her buttocks again. This marked his second arrest in under a month for the same lewd act. Authorities dubbed him a "serial butt sniffer" due to his repeated offenses, with a history of targeting women in stores across Burbank and Glendale since at least 2021.
He posted $100,000 bail but violated parole, leading to another detention without bail.
By September 2025, reports confirmed he had been arrested at least three times for identical accusations, including following female shoppers and engaging in inappropriate sniffing.
In November 2025, he faced arrest once more for failing to comply with annual sex offender registration requirements while on parole for burglary.
Court records show Crowder was sentenced to 135 days in jail for parole violations following these incidents, but he was released after serving time.
As of late 2025 and into early 2026, social media and news reports indicate he was sentenced to an additional 99 days for further violations.
His persistent reoffending has sparked outrage online, with many calling it one of the strangest repeat crimes, and victims like Witter highlighting the lack of long-term protection. Authorities continue to monitor him as a high-risk offender, but his history suggests the cycle of arrests and releases may persist without stricter interventions.
Calese Crowder's repeated behavior: crouching behind women in public stores like Barnes & Noble, Nordstrom Rack, and Walgreens, then getting extremely close to sniff their buttocks, points to a specific paraphilic fetish known as olfactophilia (also called osmolagnia), which is a sexual arousal from smells or odors, particularly body odors.
In his case, the focus is consistently on the anal or buttock area, making it a form of olfactophilia centered on buttocks or anal scents.
This involves deriving sexual gratification from inhaling the natural odors (sweat, pheromones, fecal remnants, or general body scent) from that region, often without the victim's consent or knowledge.
Police and media descriptions uniformly label it as "inappropriately sniffing her buttocks" or "lewd behavior by inappropriately sniffing her buttocks," and the pattern has persisted since at least 2021, earning him nicknames like the "serial butt sniffer" or "butt-sniffing bandit" in news reports.
He does this because it sexually excites him; it's a compulsive paraphilia where the act of covertly smelling a woman's intimate area provides arousal or gratification.
Paraphilias like this are often deeply ingrained and difficult to control without treatment, which explains the recidivism despite arrests, jail time, parole, and sex offender registration. The non-consensual, sneaky nature (pretending to tie shoes, look at shelves, or browse nearby) adds a voyeuristic or opportunistic element, aligning with his broader history of peeping, prowling, stalking, and lewd conduct.