{"id":392553,"date":"2026-07-09T21:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T21:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/392553\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T21:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T21:38:11","slug":"former-mayor-of-california-town-arrested-in-foreign-exchange-student-sex-abuse-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/392553\/","title":{"rendered":"Former mayor of California town arrested in foreign exchange student sex abuse case"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former mayor of a Northern California city has been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing a minor foreign exchange student who had been assigned to his home, police said.<\/p>\n

Robert “Brian” Bassett, 58, was arrested July 9 and booked into the Butte County Jail on multiple felony sexual assault charges, Gridley police said.<\/p>\n

Police said the investigation began after the department received information alleging that a juvenile foreign exchange student had been repeatedly sexually abused while under the care of a host family.<\/p>\n

\"gridley-former-mayor-arrested.jpg<\/p>\n

Robert “Brian” Bassett \u00a0<\/p>\n

Gridley Police Department<\/p>\n

The charges listed by police include sexual penetration of a minor, oral copulation with a minor and statutory rape.<\/p>\n

Police said the victim is safe and receiving support from family and friends.<\/p>\n

“The allegations in this case involve a profound betrayal by an individual who was entrusted with the care and well-being of a young individual living thousands of miles away from home and their family,” Gridley police said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Additional details are being withheld because the case involves a minor and to protect the ongoing criminal proceedings, police said.<\/p>\n

Bassett served as mayor of Biggs in 2023 and was also a city councilmember, resigning fully from the council in 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gridley is a small Butte County city of just over 7,000 residents, about an hour north of Sacramento and roughly 27 miles south of Chico.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former mayor of a Northern California city has been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing a minor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[19786,7,9,8],"class_list":["post-392553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-butte-county","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}