Lawyer Says Dropping His Pants Was Educational Rather than Sexual
A lawyer charged with dropping his pants while counseling two 19-year-old men on Friday says he exposed himself as part of a mentoring program to help at-risk youths.
Thomas Walkley, a lawyer from Norton, Ohio, has been charged with two misdemeanor counts of public indecency, the Akron Beacon Journal reports. He entered a written plea of not guilty on Tuesday, according to Fox8Cleveland and the Akron Beacon Journal.
The incident allegedly took place at the cafe Walkley founded, an at-risk center for troubled teens. The two men told police they had gone to see Walkley about the possibility of performing court-ordered community service at the cafe.
One of the men, Xavier Sworniowski, told the Beacon Journal that the conversation was very disjointed as they discussed an underage drinking arrest. Walkley dropped his pants, Sworniowski said, after asking the men whether he could make them think differently.
Walkley told the newspaper that his motivation was educational rather than sexual, and he has dropped his pants in past counseling sessions. ”Radical times call for radical measures,” he said.
NewsNet5.com quotes from the 911 tape in which the victim handed the phone to Walkley. It includes this exchange:
Dispatcher: I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on.
Walkley: Oh, there’s nothing going on. They just came over for community service. I was explaining to them what the program is, and so forth.
Dispatcher: So, nobody pulled their pants down?
Walkley: I didn’t say that. These guys are over the age of 18 and they were being … we have something going on with our … part of our program and if you want to send one of the officers over, we can talk to him about what that is.
