Benton restaurateur faces sex charges; not finished, police say
A Benton restaurant owner arrested last month on charges of sexually assaulting his 14- and 15-year-old employees surrendered to police Wednesday and faces additional charges including rape and burglary, a police news release states.
Tim Steppach, 46, of Benton, surrendered Wednesday morning and was booked on felony rape and residential burglary charges and misdemeanor counts of interference with emergency communications, third-degree assault, and a third count of fourth-degree sexual assault, jail records show. He was released around 2:35 p.m.
In October, two teen girls employed at Steppach’s Tim’s Tavern Restaurant told authorities that Steppach repeatedly touched their bottoms and breasts, tried to kiss them and made sexual comments, a police incident report states.
Information unearthed by questioning the girls also suggests that Steppach was permitting teenage employees to handle and serve alcohol, according to the incident report.
Steppach was arrested on the initial charges, two counts of fourth-degree sexual assault, a misdemeanor, on Jan. 25.
The new charges came as a result of victims providing additional information, authorities said. Details on the accusations that formed the basis for the new charges weren’t available Wednesday.
The two girls are referred to as Victim 1, age 14, and Victim 2, age 15, with their names redacted because they are minors. The report also lists three more minors — a 14-year-old boy, a 15-year-old girl and a 16-year-old girl — who spoke with police during the investigation, but it wasn’t clear from the report what their connection to Steppach or the two victims is.
Police began investigating around noon on Oct. 31 after Steppach’s wife Katie, who works as the restaurant’s kitchen manager, contacted police and said that the two girls came to her and told her about Tim’s behavior in early September, according to the incident report.
Katie Steppach was initially skeptical of their claims that Tim had been “grabbing their butts and asking if they’ve had sex before,” she told police because she had never known Tim to act like that. Tim denied doing anything other than making inappropriate jokes when
confronted, the report says.
But on Oct. 19, Katie told police, she saw him staring at an underage employee’s behind, describing it as “a deliberate glare.” After speaking with the two girls again, she confronted her husband, who denied everything and told Katie she was crazy, leading her to stay with other people to get away from Tim, the report says.
The two girls and another juvenile employee all quit after she confronted her husband, Katie told police.
It was not clear from the report which girl was being questioned in which interview, but one of the girls told investigators that Tim would touch her behind and tell her to “wear booty shorts and crop tops.”
This girl would go behind the restaurant, which serves barbecue, with Tim to check on ribs cooking, the report says. He would try to kiss her “every time,” she told police, and get mad when she pulled away. Once Tim did kiss her cheek, she told police, but it was because she pulled away to prevent him from kissing her lips.
The same girl told police that when she was bussing dishes Tim would stand behind her and “smack her butt” when she bent over to pull the plug out of the sink drain. Other times he would drag his hand across her chest, she said.
After Katie confronted him the first time, Tim told at least one of the girls not to tell anyone what had happened and only talk to him about the incident, the report states. The first girl interviewed told police that even after this happened Tim kept on trying to kiss her and touch her breasts.
The other victim told police that she initially brushed off compliments by Tim when she started working but that she got a bad feeling about him touching her and claiming it was an accident.
Once, when Tim was teaching the teenager how to stock the restaurant’s beer cooler, he asked her age, she told investigators, and then if she had ever had sex. She said she changed the subject, but when she was in the beer cooler with Tim another time, he asked her what kind of underwear she wears.
That girl told investigators she started working at Tim’s Tavern in August. The other girl couldn’t recall the date she started working.
A third girl, listed as a witness in the report, told police that the night she was hired, Aug. 12, she saw Tim brushing his female employees’ behinds with his hand and that he did this “several times to all the girls.”
That witness told police she had never been paid in two months and that once, when one of the two victims came to the restaurant to show Katie her homecoming dress, Tim said, “If you wore that you would make great tips.”