A Columbus man was arrested Wednesday morning after allegedly peeping at a woman using the restroom in the Love’s Travel Stop on Tuscaloosa Road.
Curtis Fondren, 28, is charged with a felony peeping tom charge after an incident that happened shortly after 7 a.m., Columbus Police Department Chief Joseph Daughtry said.
Daughtry said Fondren allegedly followed a woman into the restroom at the travel stop, where he got into the stall next to the woman and stuck his head under the stall’s wall. According to a Thursday press release from CPD, Fondren allegedly continued to look and reach under the stall after she continuously asked him to leave her alone.
Daughtry said the woman captured a video of Fondren’s behavior, and after he left the restroom, she went and reported it to the Love’s staff, and an employee called 911.
An officer was patrolling nearby, Daughtry said, and Fondren was still on the travel stop’s property when the officer arrived. Fondren was arrested and booked into the Lowndes County Adult Detention Center.
According to state law, anyone who enters property, whether the original entry is legal, and then peeps through a window or opening for sexual purposes is guilty of felonious trespassing, a crime that can receive up to five years in prison if the victim is older than 21.
Fondren and the victim did not know each other before the incident, the release said.
As of Thursday afternoon, Fondren was still awaiting his initial appearance, Daughtry said.
“Whether it’s a young man or a young woman, or if they went to the boys restroom or the girls restroom, the restroom is a place of privacy,” Daughtry said. “If these folks are going to use the restroom, they should not have to worry about someone peeping at them. That’s sick.”
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