Man pleads guilty to exposing himself to 5-year-old at Westfield Mall
A 72-year-old convicted sex offender who exposed himself to a 5-year-old girl in a Palm Desert store pleaded guilty today to child annoyance and other felony charges.
Roger David Faber of Sky Valley exposed himself to the girl last August at Dick’s Sporting Goods at the Westfield Palm Desert mall, about one week after being discharged from parole following time served in prison for a similar crime at a Target store in La Quinta.
Jury selection was slated to begin Thursday for Faber’s trial when he entered guilty pleas to counts of child annoyance, failure to register as a sex offender and a misdemeanor assault count. A felony indecent exposure count is expected to be dismissed at sentencing on Oct. 5.
Sheriff’s deputies say that at about 1:30 p.m. on Aug. 17, 2017, the girl told her mother and deputies that a man inside the store showed her his “front bottom spot,” which deputies corroborated by reviewing store surveillance footage, according to an arrest warrant declaration.
Faber was allegedly seen in the footage trailing the girl and her mother through the store. He then began “manipulating the front (groin) area of his pants” while the girl was facing him, then exposing himself to her, causing the girl to hide behind her mother, who was at a nearby clothing rack,
the declaration states. Tattoos on his forearms aided deputies in positively identifying him, according to the court document.
Faber, who had been discharged from parole on Aug. 10, 2017, pleaded guilty in 2007 to charges related to exposing himself and brushing his genitals up against young girls at a La Quinta Target store, the declaration states.
He was arrested Aug. 24, 2017, on Pacific Coast Highway in Torrance.
Prosecutors said that following the mall incident, he fled the Coachella Valley and was living out of his car. Sheriff’s investigators tracked him down through his cell phone, according to court documents.
When approached in Torrance by a Palm Desert sheriff’s deputy, who asked Faber if he wanted to come to a nearby police station to talk, Faber told the deputy, “Send me down to Indio,” court documents state. When the deputy said they would not go to Indio, Faber told him, “Well, that’s where the crime happened,” but later corrected himself and admitted the incident occurred in Palm Desert.
Inside Faber’s car, the deputy also found clothing matching the items he wore in the mall’s surveillance footage, according to court documents.
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