Posted on 12/18/2009 9:06:08 PM PST by myknowledge
A US man has been charged with indecent exposure for being naked in his own home.
Erick Williamson, 29 was observed without clothes through a doorway and a window, by a seven-year-old boy and his mother who were walking by.
Williamson argued that it was his home, and therefore he could choose to go nude.
But a judge found against him, saying that he intended to make himself visible to passers-by.
The Virginia man said he will appeal the decision.
"I think that being tried and found guilty of something like this is outrageous," Williamson said after he was convicted and sentenced.
"I feel like I'm living in a fishbowl."
Williamson testified that he never intended to expose himself and was simply exercising "personal freedom" as he spent several hours naked in his Springfield home packing up belongings.
Police, prosecutors and two witnesses, though, said Williamson's actions were designed to draw attention to himself.
The first woman who passed by, school librarian Joyce Giuliani, said she heard some loud singing as she left her home and drove to work. As she drove by Williamson's home, she saw him naked, standing directly behind a large window.
A few hours later, Yvette Dean was walking her seven-year-old son to school along a trail that runs by Williamson's home.
She heard a loud rattle, looked to her left and saw Williamson standing naked, full frontal, in a side doorway.
"He gave me eye contact," Dean said.
As she turned the corner, she looked back at the home, in disbelief at what she had just seen.
Again, she saw Williamson, naked in the same window.
One of Williamson's housemates testified that Williamson had been nude well before dawn.
Timothy Baclit testified that he woke up around 5am to go to work and saw Williamson walking around "naked ... with a hard hat."
He said he warned Williamson that he would be visible to passers-by but that Williamson did not respond.
Williamson, 29, said the conversation with Baclit never occurred and that he never noticed that two women had seen him.
He said "it did not occur to me" that people outside the home might see him naked.
Regardless of whether he was seen, Williamson's conduct does not constitute indecent exposure, said his attorney, Dickson Young.
Under Virginia law, the charge requires "an obscene display or exposure" and must occur in "a public place or a place where others are present."
Young argued that neither prong had been met.
"Mere nudity is insufficient to declare conduct obscene," Young said, noting that none of the women testified that Williamson was aroused or that he made any sort of obscene gesture.
"Nudity in one's own home is not a crime."
Housemate(s)? So he shares the house with others and still prances around nude in front of them? Is this a nudist colony?
Williamson’s house is a ‘nudist colony’.
Folks still learn to use the subjunctive here? I thought Americans dropped it years ago. The college board certainly did for the SAT tests. Long ago.
If I were to hazard a guess, it would be that many of us were spanked by the doctor much longer ago than that.
Frankly, I'd like to know more about the credibility of the witness. In the first story there was no teacher who drove by in a car. In the first story there was a mother starting in the door window, along with her young son.
I hope that the little boy is alright, but there are too few facts presented to make a determination ---- but in the original story it made the M-O-M out to be a kook peeping jane.
Close the curtains, pervert.
"I was on my way to answer the door. I thought they were JWs."
How’m I supposed to take a shower?
Nanny-State ping
Criminal!
Thank you.
Do not adopt the knee jerk FreeRepublic response to this story. there’s waaaaay more to it than meets the eye.
Like the fact that he was naked in his CAR PORT!
So okay, maybe a car port is part of a house, technically, but a guy standing naked in a car port is not quite the same as running down the hall from bath to bedroom.
He WANTED to be seen and he got charged for it through our justice system. You’ll look like the Whoopi Goldbergs who defend roman Polanski if you defend this perv.
“naked ... with a hard hat.”
It was the hat! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I still maintain the woman had gone lamping, and was just getting home at that hour.
Sexual harassment accusations, which can lead to all sorts of problems for employers and employees, no longer need to be backed up with any evidence of the alleged harasser's intentions. Recent judgments instead are based solely on the victim's feelings, emotions and reaction to the alleged harassment. This has left the door open to lawsuits and complaints based on such meager evidence as "he looked at me with lust in his eye."
The same progression can be seen in "speech codes" and "non-discrimination" clauses in contracts. What was once considered dark humor is now grounds for civil--and in some cases, criminal--complaints.
I am not one to defend running around the neighborhood in the altogether, especially at this time of the year. But if a person wants to take his or her clothes off in his own home, or in his back yard for that matter, I see no reason for the law to get involved.
And if a mother and her seven-year old are offended, maybe they should look the other way. It's not like the nude guy was about to attack them.
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