While seated next to a 17-year-old girl during an airplane flight, Rafael Escamilla allegedly exposed himself and started masturbating. When confronted by cops, he said he’d only been trying to deal with a bad case of Tabasco crotch. Huh?
Yeah, it’s definitely a new one for us. The Smoking Gun reports that Escamilla, a professor of physical therapy with a PhD and everything, was seated next to the girl on a flight from Utah to Idaho when the alleged incident occurred. While flipping through her copy of Seventeen magazine and checking out the prom dresses, the girl told authorities, she spotted something moving out of the corner of her eye:
In a handwritten statement, the girl recalled, “I looked over and I could clearly see the man’s penis going side to side under the tray table that was down.” Escamilla, she added, had one hand on his laptop (which was atop the tray table) and the other “under the tray table” …
After waiting two to three minutes, the girl—who was traveling alone on the flight—got up to go to the bathroom. When she emerged, the teen sat next to a woman seated at the back of the plane, and told the woman that, “the guy that she was sitting with creeped her out.”
After the plane landed, the girl told her dad, who summoned the authorities. At first, Escamilla denied he’d exposed himself, telling officers that he “had spilled Tabasco sauce or something similar on his ‘penis’ and had an incredible itch.” And not just any itch, but “the worst ‘itch in the world.'” But during questioning, Escamilla supposedly changed the details of his story, used words like “rub” and “massage” to describe his itch-relief strategy, and—according to one officer—”never showed any obvious signs that he had an itch in this particular part of his body.” All these factors, plus the apparent absence of any hot-sauce stains on Escamilla’s jogging pants, made the officers go “hmmmm.” They arrested Escamilla for indecent exposure and took him to jail.
We’ve explored the baffling phenomenon of dick-flashing before, and now must shake our heads once more. Why would anyone even try this “dick move”—and on a crowded plane, at that? The chances of being spotted are pretty much 100%. So senseless.
Escamilla was just in the news—the good kind—for being appointed as an affiliate professor at the University of South Florida. He could be celebrating his achievements! But now he is looking at court hearings instead. Really doesn’t seem worth it.
Flier Blames Tabasco Spill For Lewd Act [The Smoking Gun]