Story Created:
Feb 1, 2010 at 6:52 PM CDT
Story Updated:
Feb 2, 2010 at 2:20 PM CDT
(Springfield, Mo.) -- Jonathan Sneddon faces 11 charges of sexual misconduct for exposing himself to fellow students. A piano and violin performance major at Missouri State University, Sneddon is now banned from campus.
He's accused of exposing himself to 11 women - all members of the campus singing group 'A Cub Bella.' The group was waiting in MSU's Ellis Hall for a rehearsal.
Two members, who didn't want to be identified, say he first approached them to pay them a compliment
"He politely said 'you guys sound great,'" she says.
10 minutes later, the women say, he returned. He walked around the group, between them and the exit.
"He started to say 'I was just wondering if,' and then stopped talking and lifted up his shirt. That's when we all started getting really nervous because we didn't know if he was going for a weapon."
My kind of stomach just dropped, and I didn't know what he was going for."
He didn't go for a weapon...
"We all heard his belt. He undid his belt, and then I heard girls saying 'don't do that. are you seriously going to do that?'"
"He was just holding himself and staring, like, looking back and forth at every girl."
They say he stood in front of them, exposed, for about half a minute.
"A lot of us were like, 'is he on drugs?' He seemed completely out of it ... We had girls that were yelling, like, 'put it away, get away from us.' He started to put himself back together and zip up his pants."
The women called police, and Sneddon was arrested.
"It's rare that we would have it where there are so many victims at one time. That's what made this case a little bit different," says Lt. David Millsap of the Springfield Police Department.
When questioned, Sneddon said he never exposed himself to random people, but the police dept says that might not be true.
"You can't get too tied up on somebody telling you in an interview, 'oh, this is the first time I've done this.' We hear that a lot, and it's not always true. It would be odd, I think, for somebody to decide, all of the sudden, 'I'm going to go expose myself to 11 people," says Millsap.
Sneddon could face up to 11 years in prison. He's required to stay more than 1,000 feet away from all eleven women, and off the MSU campus. Bond is set at $5,000
In the probable cause statement Sneddon told an officer he did it, "Because this college is bull----."
Contact: dmagditch@kspr.com
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