NORRISTOWN — An Abington shopper has been booted to a probationary program after his apparent foot fetish landed him in trouble at a Target store.
Robert P. James, 52, of West Berks Street in Philadelphia, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to two years’ probation after he was convicted of a misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure in connection with an August 2007 incident.
As a condition of probation, Judge Steven T. O’Neill, who presided over the non-jury trial, ordered that James undergo a psychiatric evaluation to determine his potential for any sexual offender issues and to determine if treatment is necessary.
An investigation of James began on Aug. 17, 2007, when security personnel from the Target store in the Abington Shopping Center on Old York Road notified authorities that a female shopper complained that a man had used a ruse to touch her feet.
“The man identified himself as a foot doctor and asked questions about her shoes,” Abington Police Officer Richard M. Ottenbreit wrote in the arrest affidavit. “The woman slipped her foot out of the shoe and before she knew it, the man had manipulated her toes.”
Authorities indicated the incident marked the second such report Target security officials had received that month.
Armed with a description of the alleged foot manipulator, police searched the parking lot of the shopping center and discovered James slouched in the driver’s seat of his Chevrolet Caprice, his penis exposed and masturbating, according to the arrest affidavit.
When he was questioned by police, James claimed that he only asked the woman in the Target store about her shoes and he denied touching the woman, according to court papers.
James allegedly claimed that he identified himself as a “pedicurist” to the woman. The female Target shopper positively identified James as the man who approached her in the store.
Under state law, someone commits indecent exposure when they expose their genitals in any public place under circumstances in which they knew or should have known that the conduct would likely offend, affront or alarm others.