Transient Felon Held in Peeping Tom Incident
A convicted felon and transient newly arrived in Laguna Beach was arrested for alleged lewd conduct Tuesday after a neighbor alerted a mother about a man lurking in the bushes and peering into a fenced backyard where her 4-year-old daughter was at play.
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Richard Paul Lyons was nude from the waist down and had been masturbating while watching the young child, witnesses told police.
Lyons’ backpack contained dog treats, binoculars and pornography, according to the 38-year-old mother, whose neighbor on Ocean Vista Drive initially described a trespasser and could not see the suspect was unclothed.
“I have to say, it is one of the scariest things I have been through,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified out of fear of retaliation. In an email the next day to friends, she described shooing her daughter inside before calling police, locking the doors and hiding her daughter in a back bedroom until police arrived.
“I want you all to guard your children and know that we do need to worry,” the mother told her friends, citing Chelsea King, the 17-year-old San Diego teen whose remains were discovered earlier this month after she disappeared while jogging. DNA led police to arrest a registered sex offender, according to KTLA.com. “Tonight I was way too vividly imagining that could have been us,” the Laguna mother said.
The 54-year-old homeless man may have been living out of his car and was not sleeping in the city’s newly established shelter in Laguna Canyon, said police Lt. Jason Kravetz. Outreach Officer Jason Farris had come across him a week ago, Kravetz said.
Lyons, convicted of crimes in Texas and Missouri, including one child-related crime, was found to be in possession of items that lead officers to believe he was engaging in illegal sexual activity, Kravetz said.
Lyons was unaware that the woman could see him looking into the yard and remained on the property until police arrived at 5:15 p.m., Kravetz said.
The woman’s husband, en route to a hockey game with their 7-year-old son, returned home, arriving before police did and observed Lyons naked in the bushes, according to the woman. Her husband recognized Lyons as the same man he had seen in the Albertson’s shopping center in the last week, she said.
Lyons was held for $10,000 bail in the county jail on the misdemeanor charge pending his arraignment, which was to be held Thursday, Kravetz said. Police will be requesting an additional sex-offense charge of annoying a child under 18, also a misdemeanor, he said.
The mother, whose husband has deep ties to Laguna, blames Good Samaritans who provide food to the homeless for cultivating an environment that entices outsiders such as Lyons. “I think we need to educate people to help in another way,” she said.
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