A Coeburn minister has been cleared of charges of indecent exposure during an incident with a Kingsport vice officer at a Riverfront Park restroom.
John Franklin McCarroll, 66, of Big Stone Gap, Va.,
was arrested on April 8. Kingsport Sessions Judge Duane Snodgrass said during Thursday's trial, "I have carefully studied indecent exposure. I cannot in good conscience do anything except dismiss this case."
McCarroll is pastor at Trinity Life Center in Coeburn, Va.
Testimony heard during the trial included statements from vice detectives who were conducting an undercover investigation at the public restrooms at Riverfront Park on Netherland Inn Road, where McCarroll was arrested. The investigation was in response to anonymous reports of indecent exposure there, they said.
One officer was in the restroom with McCarroll. The other was in an SUV parked between 75 to 100 yards away.
According to the first officer's testimony, he was standing against the south wall when McCarroll came into the restroom and walked over to the urinal. The officer said that after McCarroll flushed, he stood there for "roughly two to three minutes peeping his head around the side (of the wall) at me."
The officer then told the court that McCarroll then walked about three feet in front of him with his pants unbuttoned and unzipped commenting that he needed tissue paper. Before returning to the urinal, the officer said he saw McCarroll looking toward his crotch area. He said he asked McCarroll if he needed help, and McCarroll said he was looking for something, then he asked McCarroll what he was looking for.
He said McCarroll responded, "Some of that young stuff," and then walked back to the urinal. That's when he testified he saw McCarroll put his private parts through the hole in the privacy wall for roughly two seconds.
The officer testified he then asked McCarroll to come outside with him and, once outside, identified himself as a police officer.
Both he and the second officer, who came over at the first officer's signal once they exited the restroom, testified that McCarroll made the statement, "I'm sorry, I knew this was wrong."
Both also testified that McCarroll asked them not to put his arrest in the newspaper.
The officers said they did not use audio or video recording during the investigation.
Following the officers' testimony, Rick Spivey, McCarroll's attorney, made a motion that the case be dismissed "based on the proof presented by the state."
The judge denied the motion, and McCarroll took the stand in his own defense. His version of events differed from what police described.
McCarroll said when he went into the restroom he saw "a man standing at the commode exposing himself."
He testified that he went to the urinal and used the restroom, and that the man went out of the restroom when he went over to wash his hands. "I thought nothing about it, I really, I thought nothing about it," he said.
Upon questioning by prosecuting attorney Josh Parsons, McCarroll said that after using the restroom he looked through the hole in the wall at the man. He said he was thinking, "Is he doing what I think he's doing?" and described bending over to look through the hole to look.
"When I went outside, this gentleman said 'you're under arrest,' and I said, 'what for' and he said, 'You exposed yourself to me in there." McCarroll said that was the only discussion there was.
He denied exposing himself through the hole in the wall or making any of the comments the officers reported.
He said he didn't make the suggestive statement he was accused of making by the officer in the restroom, "because I didn't think he was that young."
He also denied saying he was sorry or that he knew something was wrong, and said that his only words after his arrest were, "Will this be in the newspaper?"
McCarroll testified he'd come to Kingsport via Wadlow Gap Road to visit a cancer patient at Holston Valley Medical Center, but never got there due to his arrest. En route, he dropped his wife off at the mall on Fort Henry Drive, then chose to start toward the Evergreen store, located off Netherland Inn Road on Riverport Road, where he planned to check out their supply of Easter lilies for the church.
On the way there, he said he remembered reading in the newspaper about the work being done at the boat landing on Netherland Inn Road so he stopped to check it out.
McCarroll denied having any knowledge of the restrooms at the park until he got there. " I stopped there to see the boat and realized I had to go to the bathroom," he said. He said he had been diagnosed with a medical condition that affects his bladder, resulting in frequent urination.
Spivey also introduced three character witnesses who had known McCarroll for 10 years or more and described his reputation in the community as "very good." Each affirmed that McCarroll should be believed when testifying under oath.
The officer who initiated McCarroll's arrest expressed disappointment with the outcome of the case.
Spivey said the state failed to meet their burden of proof in the case.
As of Friday afternoon, neither McCarroll nor his wife had returned a Thursday phone call requesting comment.
Before the trial, the judge ruled that the legal definition excluding a public restroom from the definition of a public place was "inapplicable" to the offense of indecent exposure - an issue which Spivey had called into question at an earlier hearing.
Originally Posted by R13
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