Police: Naked man touched self, stared at jogger on trail

By the time she spotted the naked man, it was too late to look away — or even run in a different direction.

A 35-year-old woman’s jog in The Trails subdivision in Ormond Beach last week was interrupted by a man standing on a bridge who was wearing only footwear while touching himself.

That man, police said, was Brandon Smith, a 28-year-old operations supervisor at a large consignment store in Ormond Beach.

“She advised that she did not realize until she got closer that the defendant was naked except for running shoes and socks,” a police report about the Feb. 1 incident said. “The victim stated that it was too late for her to run away because she didn’t notice he was naked until she started crossing the bridge, and there was no other way for her to go.”

She said she clearly saw his face because he was so close.

She ran to a friend’s house, where she called police.

Officers couldn’t find a suspect.

After an investigation, including a photo line-up with the alleged victim, Smith was arrested Thursday on a misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure while in public, according to Ormond Beach police.

Smith became a suspect because of two other incidents, one in 2012 and the other in 2014. A man looked at a 53-year-old woman through a privacy fence while touching himself in February 2012.

It happened behind a home where Smith used to live and the alleged victim declined to pursue charges because of “fear of retaliation,” a report said. In the 2014 case, a woman in The Trails accused Smith of touching himself in the bushes outside her house while watching her.

In 2015, he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of exposure of sexual organs and adjudication was withheld. Records show he completed six months of probation and paid fines.