A wide-ranging investigation has been launched into allegations that a Pueblo man has molested many boys over the years, including most recently while manager for Sen. John McCain’s presidential-campaign office in Pueblo.
Jeffrey Claude Bartleson, 52, was arrested Jan. 29 and then re-arrested Wednesday after a campaign worker in the McCain office told police she believed Bartleson molested her son.
Sgt. Brett Wilson, who heads the Pueblo Police Department’s special victims unit, said Thursday that there are “several active investigations” involving Bartleson. He wouldn’t detail the allegations.
However, in affidavits filed by police investigators in Pueblo District Court, authorities say that the most recent complaints follow a pattern that dates to 1982.
According to Detective Daniel Anderson, Bartleson has usually positioned himself so he is around children, whether as a Scoutmaster, as a sponsor of the chemical-dependency unit at Pueblo’s Parkview Medical Center, at his church or simply by inviting children to spend the night at his home.
The latest arrest stemmed from a report by a woman who worked with Bartleson in the McCain campaign office. She told investigators that she and a co-worker were planning in October to attend a Sarah Palin rally in Colorado Springs but wanted to travel to the Springs the night before.
She told police that she mentioned the planned trip to Bartleson. He offered to keep her 5-year-old son overnight in Pueblo and then drive up to Colorado Springs the next day and meet them there. She accepted.
The woman said that her son told her that while at Bartleson’s home, Bartleson insisted on giving him a bath, during which he was sexually molested. Later, the child told his mother, Bartleson forced the boy into his bed, where he once again was molested.
Bartleson is being held on a $150,000 bond for investigation of sex assault on a child.
