WELLFLEET, Mass. — A North Shore man was arrested for allegedly exposing himself to families at Newcomb Hollow Beach in Wellfleet on Sunday morning.
Phat Tran, a 29-year-old who is due in court Monday, is a registered sex offender who has a past of similar crimes.
He's been convicted of open and gross lewdness five times before and faces two new counts of that same charge after, police say, he gave beach-goers a sight they never wanted to see.
It’s not only the arrest more than 100 miles away from that community that caught neighbors by surprise. What’s shocking neighbors is that many did not know the man next door is a registered level two sex offender.
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Police say several people reported a sickening and public display at Newcomb Hollow Beach as Tran stood up on a sand dune, exposing himself to visitors down on the beach below.
"I'm scared because I have my daughter," said Antonia Aguilar, a neighbor. "She's a teenager."
The charges on the Cape alerted Tran's neighbors to his troubling past documented in the sex offender registry.
He was convicted on four counts of open and gross lewdness and lascivious behavior in August 2016 and was convicted on one count of that same charge in June 2013.
A family just moving into the same multi-family home where Tran lives, on the floor above him, told Boston 25 News that they also did not know about the history of sex crimes.
Tran is being held in Wellfleet Sunday on $10,000 bail. He is due in Orleans District Court Monday.
Cox Media Group
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