Vallone's Fight Against Flashers

You might be uneasy if a Google search of your name associated you with perverts.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing for Queens City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., who is getting his name associated with such words in a good way. Today Vallone, chairman of the City Council's Public Safety Committee, held hearings on how to crackdown on perhaps the most depraved form of pervert known to man: the flasher.

With incidents of public lewdness having increased across the City 25% this year, and with several highh profile cases of such activity making the news in recent months, Vallone has introduced a bill that would raise public lewdness from a B to an A misdemeanor, raising maximum penalties from three months in prison and $500 fine to up to a year in prison and a $1,000 fine. Vallone also introduced a resolution asking the state to add serial offenders and flashers of children to the sex offense registry.

" If these perverts want attention, if they want someone to watch them, that’s just what we’ll do. The authorities will be happy to keep and eye on them and alert their neighbors they live nearby,” Vallone said. “Our mothers and daughters should not have to suffer so a pervert can get his fix.”

In the past, authorities have been hesitant to beef up public lewdness laws since prosecutors must also use them to go after incidents of more harmless public nudity, such as streaking. But with the new proposal, prosecutors will have a choice: one law for streakers and other pranksters, and another tougher law for more nefarious instances of junk-dangling nastiness. As for one's permanent record, suspects will be added to the sex offense registry only for multiple offenses or when the act is committed in the presence of a minor.

Vallone's committee also heard testimony from Thao Nguyen, the woman who in August 2005 caught restaurant owner Dan Hoyt playing with himself in front of her on an R train and [photographed the whole thing] with her camera phone. Hoyt eventually turned himself in and plead guilty, but less stringent laws kept him from seeing any jail time.

“It feels like someone violated you when this happens,” said a tearful Nguyen. “If we don’t stop these sickos, these guys could go out and rape or sexually assault other women.”

Hear, hear.