12-year-old girls say man fondled them in mall

Police say the Palm Harbor man grabbed the girls' buttocks inside a store in the mall. He is charged.

By CHRIS TISCH, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published September 4, 2002

CLEARWATER -- A Palm Harbor man was arrested Monday afternoon on charges that he fondled the buttocks of two 12-year-old girls inside Countryside Mall.

Perry H. White, 39, was arrested on two charges of lewd and lascivious molestation. He was released from the Pinellas County Jail after posting $40,000 bail, jail records show.

The girls told police they were walking through the mall when they noticed a man following them. They went into a Spencer Gifts store, where the man approached them and fondled their bottoms, Clearwater police said.

"It was a grab. It wasn't a brush," said police spokesman Wayne Shelor.

The girls told their parents, who alerted mall security about 4:20 p.m. By this time, the man, later identified as White, had fled the store. Security officers kept an eye on him and called police, who arrived at the mall just as he was darting across State Road 580, Shelor said.

The man kept running and then tried to hide behind bushes, but he was apprehended by Clearwater police Cpl. Steve Baginski. White refused to speak with officers, Shelor said.

Witnesses who were in Spencer Gifts also told police they saw White touch the girls inappropriately, Shelor said.

Though White has no previous criminal record in Florida, a records check shows he was accused of a similar incident 10 years ago, also at Countryside Mall. On Jan. 3, 1992, a female accused White of bending over and touching her buttocks in a store at the mall, a police report states.

White told officers the incident was an accident. The female, whose age was not listed on the police report, refused to prosecute. Officers wrote a field information report and did not arrest White.

White, of 2625 Warwick Ter., could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The two girls who said they were fondled Monday told police they thought White also had touched them at the mall on a previous day. But Shelor said police haven't found other complaints about a man fondling women in shopping malls who meets White's description.

"They have no indications, in our jurisdiction, that he's been doing this with any regularity," Shelor said.

Searches of records of the Largo Police Department and the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office found that officers and deputies have had no encounters with White.

-- Chris Tisch can be reached at 445-4156 or tisch@sptimes.com. Times researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright