Serial Flasher’s Style: Underwear on Face

This criminal doesn’t demand money or take your car. About two dozen times since November, he has stood naked before windows of area businesses with a pair of underwear pulled over his face.

He is among a handful of people believed responsible for more than 40 incidents of lewd conduct outside offices and stores in eight Orange County cities, Sheriff’s Department officials said Thursday.

Police distributed composite sketches of two other men being sought and asked the public for help in capturing them.

“We don’t care where you live or where you work, we’re concerned about it,” sheriff’s Capt. Steve Carroll said at a news conference in Santa Ana.

Businesses in Lake Forest, Laguna Hills, Mission Viejo, Orange, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente, Santa Ana and Tustin have reported instances of indecent exposure and lewd conduct, and more than half of those reports involve a man who wore underwear on his head.

In Tustin, where the most incidents have been reported, one or more flashers stood in front of 11 offices in a mile-long stretch of Irvine Boulevard between the Costa Mesa Freeway and Newport Avenue. They typically occurred between 8 and 11 p.m., while a woman was working alone inside a business.

Another cluster of incidents was reported around businesses in Lake Forest, Mission Viejo and Laguna Hills, near El Toro Road and Interstate 5.

A sketch of one suspect shows a thin, muscular man age 25 to 35 who exposed himself at least twice in Santa Ana and Laguna Hills. The other shows a man age 21 to 26. He is being sought for entering the home of a woman in Foothill Ranch.

Since January, there have been 80 reports of indecent exposure in Orange County, a number typical for an area this size. Only when police from different departments happened to collaborate did they notice a pattern around county businesses, Carroll said.

Identification of the flashers has been difficult because of the underwear over the face of the one perpetrator and others whose faces were covered or not seen clearly enough by the victims. Also, the flashers’ bodies did not appear to have identifying marks or tattoos.

“Most of the women said that if you did a [regular] lineup, they wouldn’t be able to identify the suspect,” Carroll said. “But they said they might be able to identify him if he were nude.”

Police also are seeking at least two perpetrators in a series of eight so-called hot prowls, in which a fully or partially dressed man peers through the windows of women’s homes during the late night or early morning. In the most serious case, a flasher entered a Tustin home and tried to force a woman into a sexual act. When she fought him off, he fled.