A Long Island man has been charged with endangering the welfare of a child and possession of a dangerous weapon after an off-duty police officer caught him allegedly taking lewd photos of a girl in an ice cream/frozen yogurt shop. The off-duty Nassau County cop happened to be getting a frozen treat at the Mad Topper in North Massapequa last night when he spotted 44-year-old Richard Stacel allegedly taking "unauthorized" photos of an eight-year-old girl with his cell phone.
Nassau police spokesman Kenneth Lack tells Newsday (paywall) that Stacel was standing in "close proximity" with the girl, "and the manner in which he was taking pictures was clearly lewd." Lack would not elaborate further, but he told CBS 2, "What the officer observed, it’s safe to say that he was attempting to take lewd photographs of the 8-year-old girl right outside what we would consider normal photographs in public."
The officer waited until Stacel was outside the shop to confront him, and in the ensuing struggle, Stacel allegedly broke the phone in half and tried to destroy the memory card. Police say he managed to get inside his car and tried, in vain, to reach the center console, where a stun gun was later found (hence the weapons charge). According to Nassau police, technicians are trying to recover images from the broken memory card. Stacel is expected to be arraigned today.
