Rape Suspect Is Named in Robberies

A man charged with sexually assaulting two teen-agers during a holdup at a Camarillo yogurt shop has been named in a 20-count indictment accusing him of robbing several fast-food stores in the county.

The indictment, announced by prosecutors on Thursday, charges Christopher Bass, 21, of Goleta with committing a string of armed robberies last summer, most of them at Thousand Oaks pizza shops. Prosecutors say he was sometimes accompanied by Keith Groom, 21, of Simi Valley.

Groom was arrested Tuesday after the Ventura County grand jury handed down the indictment, but Bass has been in custody since September in connection with the yogurt shop robbery and assaults.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Maeve Fox said the robberies are similar in that they involve small stores in strip malls and that the holdups occurred around closing time.

The yogurt shop robbery was the only one to include a sexual assault, the prosecutor said.

The two teen-age employees at the yogurt shop, Fox said, “were the first female victims that were encountered in the series of robberies.”

Fox said Bass is charged with armed robbery at four pizza shops in Thousand Oaks before the Camarillo yogurt shop holdup in August.

Groom is charged with participating in two of the robberies as well as a June pizza shop holdup in Thousand Oaks.

The robberies netted between $70 and $600, Fox said.

Bass and Groom are friends and were working at a bagel shop in Agoura Hills when the robberies occurred, Fox said.

Bass is named as a defendant in 19 of the indictment counts.

Twelve of the charges stem from the yogurt shop holdup and include robbery, rape, false imprisonment, rape with a foreign object, oral copulation and sexual battery.

Groom is charged with four counts of robbery.