Waite Park Man Sentenced to Six Days in Jail For Exposing Himself to Children

(KNSI) – A Waite Park man with a history of exposing himself to children has been sentenced to six days behind bars and ordered to pay a small fine.

According to court documents, on October 11th, 2021, two fourteen-year-old girls were at a park off Maine Prairie Road in St. Cloud when they saw a man in a truck staring at kids playing at the park. They walked by and could see the man wasn’t wearing any clothes. They took pictures. The man was later identified as Eduardo Antonio Lopez. When police spoke to Lopez, he denied doing anything inappropriate.

That same day, police were called to an apartment building in the 800 block of 7th Street South in Waite Park for a man exposing himself to a woman and her 14-year-old girl. According to the criminal complaint, the woman, whose first language is not English, explained to officers she didn’t know the correct word to describe what she saw and said she looked out the peephole and witnessed the man in the hall, holding his “thing.” She said he had done this the week before in the same building.

The daughter told officers she looked out and saw Lopez exposing himself. She told officers she was deeply disturbed by what she saw and was concerned because children lived in the building.

Officers made contact with Lopez, who denied exposing himself but said he had used drugs earlier in the day. Police arrested Lopez and said he had a glass pipe in his possession that is commonly used to smoke narcotics.

He was scheduled to be sentenced last week but, during a hearing in November, pleaded guilty to two gross misdemeanor counts of 5th-degree criminal sexual conduct with those under 16 present and one gross misdemeanor count of indecent exposure lewdness or procure another to expose in the presence of a minor under 16.

Another charge of indecent exposure and drug possession was dismissed in the plea deal.

Judge Heidi Schultz sentenced the 31-year-old man to one year in jail but suspended all his time behind bars except for the six days he has already served. He was also fined $689. Today, Lopez is a free man.

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