The chairman of the Redlands Planning Commission, who works for Los Angeles County and is also a former spokesman for the Riverside Police Department, was arrested on Tuesday, Oct. 3, on suspicion of possession of child pornography.
Steven Robert Frasher, 62, was still on the Planning Commission as of Tuesday afternoon, said Carl Baker, a Redlands city spokesman, who confirmed that the commissioner was arrested. Baker otherwise declined to comment.
Frasher unsuccessfully applied for the District 4 vacancy on the Redlands City Council in 2015 and unsuccessfully ran for City Council in 2020. He has lived in Redlands for about 23 years and has been a planning commissioner since 2012.
Frasher has been a public information officer for Los Angeles County Public Works since August 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile. He was a public information officer for the Glendale Unified School District from 2011 to 2012. Frasher was a spokesman for then-Riverside Police Chief Russ Leach from 2005 to 2008 and was an assistant to the mayor for two years before that, according to the profile.
CHILD PORNOGRAPHY SUSPECT ARRESTED@sbpd_chief#ICAC #SBPD #StandardOfExcellence #SanBernardinoPD #LAICAC #SanBernardino #JoinSBPD #gettingafterit pic.twitter.com/aGYdl5K3v9
— San Bernardino PD (@SanBernardinoPD) October 3, 2023
Detectives with the San Bernardino Police Department Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and Specialized Crimes Unit searched Frasher’s Redlands home after receiving a cyber tip that Frasher was downloading and storing child pornography, a Police Department news release said. Detectives found images depicting child sexual abuse on his electronic devices, the release said.
Frasher was arrested at about 8 a.m. and remained in custody Tuesday evening at Central Detention Center in San Bernardino in lieu of $30,000 bail, jail records show.
The San Bernardino Police Department is a member of the Los Angeles Regional Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. In July, the department arrested five men who arranged electronically to have sex with who they believed were minor girls — they were actually undercover cops — during a two-week sting dubbed Operation Online Guardian.
Police ask anyone with information on the Frasher case to contact Detective Clint Walton at 909-384-5644 or [email protected].