DEBARY -- Volusia County Sheriff’s investigators have filed felony charges against a 22-year-old man accused of masturbating several times while driving alongside a bus full of high school children. The incidents, which occurred over the past two weeks in DeBary, were brought to a halt on Monday when a concerned parent alerted the Sheriff’s Office after going on a morning stakeout in search of the suspect, Sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson said this afternoon.
The parent spotted the suspect and followed his car for several miles while reporting its direction of travel to dispatchers. A short while later, a deputy stopped the car and James Richmond of Lake Mary was brought in for questioning. That launched an investigation that resulted in Richmond’s arrest Thursday night on two counts of lewd or lascivious exhibition, Davidson said. Circuit Court Judge Hubert L. Grimes, who signed the arrest warrants, has ordered Richmond held on $50,000 bond.
After investigating Monday’s incident, deputies discovered that suspicious episodes involving the same suspect had been occurring since early November, Davidson said.
However, most of the previous incidents were never reported to law enforcement, he said, adding they included repeated instances of a man in a small, black car driving slowly past bus stops in DeBary and leering at girls. Several of the girls were so bothered that they reported the incidents to their parents. Some even jotted down the car’s tag number, which came back to Richmond’s 1995 black Volkswagen, Davidson said.
According to the investigation, the lewd acts began on the morning of Nov. 3 when a man in a small black car pulled alongside a school bus traveling on U.S. Highway 17-92 in DeBary. The bus was taking students to DeLand High School, and several noticed that the man in the black car was masturbating, Davidson said. The incident was repeated two days later, but neither episode was reported to law enforcement, he said. The Sheriff’s Office received the first report on Nov. 10 when a student on the same bus called 911 to report that a man in a black car was driving beside the bus and masturbating. The suspect -- who was reported to be wearing blue jeans and a light blue shirt that closely resembled medical scrubs -- wasn’t identified or located at that time.
A week after the Nov. 10 incident, the father of one of the students decided to follow the school bus on its morning route and look for the suspect. He spotted the suspect’s Volkswagen, and witnesses said the suspect was once again masturbating during Monday’s encounter, Davidson said.The father, who said he had been following the bus for the past two weeks looking for the suspect, dialed 911 at 6:38 a.m. to report Monday’s incident.
Davidson said the man stayed on the phone with a Sheriff’s Office dispatcher for approximately 11 minutes as he followed Richmond’s car and relayed his direction of travel.
“He’s been doing it, off and on, all week,” the man told the dispatcher. “As parents, we’ve been watching.” At about 6:49 a.m., a deputy caught up to the car and pulled it over along Dirksen Drive and Palm Road in DeBary. Just as in the earlier incidents, the defendant was wearing blue jeans and a light blue shirt that looked like medical scrubs.
"During questioning, Richmond denied masturbating, but acknowledged that he may have adjusted his genitals while driving," Davidson said, adding, "He also said that he went to a gym in Lake Mary early Monday morning before driving to DeBary, where he works. Richmond said he arrived before his work shift started and decided to drive around DeBary to kill time."
Sheriff’s investigator Greg Seymour checked at the gym and was told that Richmond was a member, but hadn’t been there for months. Meanwhile, investigators from the Sheriff’s Office’s DeBary headquarters interviewed students who had witnessed some of the acts. Several of the students were able to identify either Richmond or his car, Davidson said, adding that based on the findings of the Sheriff’s Office’s investigation, Judge Grimes issued two arrest warrants on Thursday.
Seminole County Sheriff’s deputies picked up Richmond Thursday night at his home in Lake Mary, Davidson said. He’s being held at the John E. Polk Correctional Facility in Sanford.