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Store Tape Shows Girl Groped, Police Say

Posted on: Saturday, 19 July 2003, 06:00 CDT

A registered sex offender was caught by a surveillance camera as he groped a 12-year-old girl in a department store, police said.

Bayardo Rafael Chamorro, 40, was arrested Thursday and charged with lewd and lascivious molestation. The Nicaraguan native was being held Saturday by immigration authorities, Miami police spokesman Lt. Bill Schwartz said.

Security guards at Sears in Coral Gables saw Chamorro brush up against the girl three times as her father stood nearby, police said. They detained Chamorro and called police.

"You have a parent standing right at this child's elbow, thinking the child is safe, and clearly the child wasn't," Schwartz said.

Chamorro was arrested twice in 2000 for sexual offenses against children. He also has prior arrests for soliciting prostitution and drunken driving.

"This is the third time in the last three years this guy has been caught doing this, so let's just hope that the 'three strikes you're out' rule follows here," Schwartz said.

Earlier this week, police in Kentucky arrested a man suspected of assaulting two children in discount stores there and in West Virginia. Those assaults were also caught on grainy store surveillance tape.

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