A former Penn State graduate student was charged Tuesday with exposing himself on the University Park campus, university police said.
Daryl G. Mains Jr., 27, of Greensburg, was charged with one count each of misdemeanor indecent exposure, misdemeanor open lewdness and misdemeanor disorderly conduct. Police said the charges stem from two incidents in which Mains was seen touching himself.
Each of the alleged incidents was reported by a female witness, police said.
The most recent case was reported June 21 by a Penn State faculty member after she saw Mains touching himself in a Willard Building computer lab, according to a police report. She told police she went to the lab to do class work and saw Mains at a computer.
He was in the back of the room with his left hand in his pocket, she reported.
The woman approached Mains, who was making ‘circular motions’ with his left hand and controlling the computer’s mouse with his right, she said. When Mains saw the woman, he jumped and immediately removed his hand, according to the police report.
She thought Mains was ‘adjusting himself,’ and she took a seat near him, police said.
After a few moments, the woman noticed Mains was again touching himself, she said. She stared at him disgustedly to make her presence known, but it didn’t stop him, according to the police report.
Outside the computer lab, the woman called police, then returned to the room to await their arrival. Once police had detained Mains, he gave his statement.
‘I was looking at pictures that were not so nice,’ he told police, according to the report. ‘I was oscillating myself.’
After the incident, police questioned the man and discovered he was involved in a similar offense that took place in April, they said. Mains entered the HUB-Robeson Center and exposed himself to a woman sitting next to him in a computer lab there, according to the report.
Penn State spokesman Geoff Rushton said Mains has since lost his part-time job working in the Chemistry Department on campus and is ‘no longer a graduate student.’
Six other on-campus indecent exposures — each involving a masked perpetrator entering a residence hall and exposing himself to female residents — have been reported in the past academic year. The threat has prompted police to increase security throughout campus.
However, Rushton said Mains is not accused of those crimes.
‘He admitted to similar incidents,’ Rushton said. ‘But it appears the residence-hall incidents are not related to [Mains].’
