After several women say they were groped in supermarket, one husband uses Facebook to nab the offender

The analog world couldn’t help a Yucaipa father find the man his wife said groped her at a grocery store, so he turned to the online community instead.

On Sunday, John Gordon was with his wife at a Stater Bros. grocery store in Yucaipa when a convicted sex offender out on parole grabbed his wife’s and other women’s rear ends and also groped some victims’ chests, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.

“She looked back at me like, ‘Did you just see what happened?’ ” Gordon told CBS2.

As Gordon’s wife began to explain, another woman approached them and said the man had just groped her too, Gordon said.

So Gordon snapped a picture of the man and alerted store employees.

Authorities said staff escorted the man, 30-year-old Geovanni Chavez, out of the store and called police. But by the time deputies arrived, Chavez had left.

But Gordon wasn’t going to let it go.

“I can’t let him leave and let this escalate to another woman,” he told CBS2.

So the Yucaipa father posted the man’s photo on Facebook and sent it to his daughters, who recognized the man and told their father he had groped them at a local fair a few days earlier.

The picture also began circulating on Facebook, and by Monday, it had entered the news feed for Chavez’s parole officer, officials said. The officer checked the man’s GPS-monitored ankle bracelet and told investigators where Chavez was, authorities said.

Chavez was arrested Monday on suspicion of sexual battery.

Court records show Chavez is a registered sex offender under Megan’s Law who was convicted of lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 15. After being sentenced to a year in prison late last year, he was given credit for time in custody and served only days in prison.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.

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