UPDATE: The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office decided Tuesday (10-18) not to press formal charges, saying there was insufficient evidence to show he `intentionally exposed his genitals in a lewd or lascivious manner,” according to the Miami Herald.
By Allan Lengel
For AOL News Depending how you look at it, Miami federal prosecutor Sean Cronin landed in hot water when his privates went public. Or when he first plunged into a cool pool at a watering hole wearing just his boxer shorts.
Whatever the case, one thing led to another on Sunday afternoon at a beer, chicken wings and sushi joint overlooking the Miami River. A mother covered her daughter’s eyes. Then the Miami cops showed up and arrested Cronin, 35, on a felony charge of lewd and lascivious exhibition and a misdemeanor count of resisting a police officer without violence.
Federal prosecutor Sean Cronin was arrested Sunday on suspicion of lewd and lascivious conduct after jumping into a restaurant pool in his boxer shorts.
Now it’s in the hands of the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, which is trying to figure out whether to move forward or drop the whole matter.
“It’s too early to tell if any charges are going to be filed,” Terry Chavez, a spokeswoman for the State Attorney’s Office, told AOL News. “We have to bring witnesses in and see if [Cronin] and his lawyer want to make statements. It’s a brand-new case. Our lawyers are looking into it like any other case.”
Cronin’s lawyer, Joel Denaro, told The Miami Herald the charges are “beyond absurd. He went swimming in his boxer shorts, for God’s sake. He did nothing wrong.” Attempts to reach Denaro and Cronin, who works in the U.S. Attorney’s Appellate Division, were unsuccessful. The U.S. Attorney’s Office did not return calls for comment.
The incident happened Sunday afternoon at Finnegan’s River, a restaurant and bar on Southwest Third Avenue in Miami. The New England Patriots football game was on the big screen, and Cronin, a Boston native, was watching. At some point, the 5-foot-5, 160-pound Cronin jumped into the pool at the bar, wearing only his boxer shorts. A woman and her young daughter were at the pool.
Then, according to a police report obtained by AOL News, when Cronin “came out of the pool, his penis was exposed and appeared to be erect.”
The mother “covered her daughter’s eyes,” then alerted pool staff members, who tried to detain Cronin until police arrived, the report said.
“While trying to detain the defendant, he tried escaping through a back exit,” the report said. “At this time Officer Arzola … arrived on the scene in a marked police vehicle wearing full uniform [and] observed the defendant running out the back of the establishment … and [he] continued fleeing southbound, jumping over multiple fences.” The officer apprehended him.
The bar where it all happened isn’t commenting — at least not to the media. “We’re not able to release any information,” a Finnegan’s River employee said over the phone.
Still, that hasn’t kept people from offering up opinions and talking about the matter, particularly in the law enforcement community.
“I do believe, however, that our society has overcriminalized people’s behavior and actions to the point of absurdity,” Tony Riggio, a former high-ranking FBI official, told AOL News. “We have all been guilty of stupidness at various times in our life. That a mother and daughter were offended is too bad, but wouldn’t it have been more human to just laugh it off as a silly stunt or an act of a man being ‘boy.’ It seems we take our lives too seriously and fail to enjoy life.”
A Miami federal agent, who asked not to be named, told AOL News that some people in Miami law enforcement circles think the whole thing has gone too far and that Cronin has a reputation as a good prosecutor and a decent guy.
“He shouldn’t have run,” the agent said. “But it’s been blown out of proportion. Should the guy be ruined and destroyed over one act of indiscretion? His indiscretion was drinking and jumping into the pool with loose-fitting boxer shorts on.”
