Police last week arrested a 20-year-old Stamford man by warrant in connection with two incidents in downtown New Canaan where he exposed himself to juvenile girls, court documents show.
The first incident occurred after school on May 23 (a Friday), when the man exposed himself to three 12-year-old girls while lingering in a feminine products area at CVS, according to an arrest warrant application filed by New Canaan Police Sgt. Peter Condos, a 38-year veteran of the department, and signed Dec. 24 by state Superior Court judge John Blawie.
After encountering the man at Starbucks around 4 p.m. that day, the girls entered CVS and one of them “noticed the same person in the furthest aisle to the left from the main entrance” and “noticed him ‘looking at products’ in the aisle which she described as tampons,” the arrest warrant application said. The girl told police, “I just didn’t want to look at it,” the application said. The girl told police that “she looked down the aisle and saw the suspect standing there with a hole in his pants,” it said.
The police affidavit continued: “She stated she saw ‘what you’re not supposed to show in public.’ [She] then said his hands [were] ‘low’ and moving in an up and down motion.”
Interviewed separately, the two other girls corroborated the information. One of them, “[a]fter initially being scared and saying she did not see anything … stated, ‘There was a guy with his private part out.’ ”
“She stated the suspect was looking at his phone but his pants were up,” the arrest warrant application said. “[The juvenile] stated the suspect was waving to her friend and asked her other friend for good lip gloss and approached her. [The juvenile] then stated that the suspect ‘put it away and whipped it back out.’ [She] confirmed that ‘it’ was his private parts.”
A third girl, also interviewed in May in the days following the incident, told police that “she did not see any of the suspect’s ‘body parts’ and his hands were out of his pants.” However, the girl later told police that “she ‘saw what he was doing with his hands’ and ‘I don’t feel comfortable,’ ” the application said. Asked how the suspect’s hands were moving, she said, “Up and down,” it said.
Security video footage inside CVS later confirmed that the man was in the first aisle as described, though “the actual alleged exposure incident” was not captured, Condos said in the affidavit.
The second exposure incident was reported to police Oct. 12. The prior day, a Saturday, two 13-year-old girls were sitting on a bench outside of Groove on Elm Street when one of them “heard a vehicle engine running and saw a male in a red vehicle parked with the passenger window down,” the application said. She “saw the male kept staring at a group of girls and thought ‘that’s weird’ so she stood up to see what he was doing.”
It continued: “She walked over closer to see this person and got close enough to be able to see inside his vehicle. She found and saw that he was masturbating . She stated that he was exposed, saw his genitalia and was doing the motion up and down.”
By the time the girl alerted her parents at nearby Solé, the vehicle was gone.
By then, police also had a photograph of the man from the CVS incident. When authorities showed it to the girl, she “immediately said ‘that’s him,’ ” the application said.
Using the victims’ description of the vehicle (a red SUV) and footage from a police camera installed downtown, NCPD was able to identify a license plate number registered to a Stamford man, 49, with two sons. About two weeks later, on the evening of Oct. 26 (a Sunday), the vehicle returned to New Canaan and police identified the driver as the 20-year-old man. During a stop, police confirmed that his appearance matched the description provided by victims, such as acne scars and bushy hair.
Police in November and December administered a series of photographic lineups with each victim separately, run by officers who had no ties to the case or knowledge of the suspect, Condos said in the arrest warrant application. Parents were present for each lineup. Four of the five girls picked out the 20-year-old Stamford man with varying degrees of certainty. In one case, a victim picked out his photo and said, “I think so because of the scars on his face,” while another said “maybe” about the photo, saying it was “the only one that may resemble the suspect,” the application said. Another victim picked out two photographs from the lineup, including the Stamford man’s, “due to scars on his face,” while saying another photo in the lineup “ ‘looks like’ him,” the application said.
Reached by police on Dec. 10, the 20-year-old Stamford man “declined a police interview” through his attorney, the application said.
Police charged him with two counts each of public indecency (a misdemeanor-level offense) and risk of injury (a felony). New Canaan Police took custody of the man Dec. 29 at the Norwalk Police Department, transported him to NCPD and held him there on $250,000 bond with a court appearance scheduled for the following day.
According to Connecticut Judicial Branch records, the man remains in custody on the same bond and is now scheduled for arraignment Feb. 26. He’s being represented by the public defender, the records show.
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