A convicted sex offender has been charged in connection with an incident over the summer where he allegedly exposed himself to a teenage girl who was visiting a historic burial ground in Boston with her family.
Wayne MacDonald, 65, was charged Wednesday in Boston Municipal Court with one count of open and gross lewdness, subsequent offense, the Suffolk District Attorney's Office said. Bail was set at $500 on the new charge, and MacDonald was ordered held without bail pending a probation violatin hearing on Dec. 5.
MacDonald is on probation until 2029 after serving a jail sentence stemming from a 2023 conviction for open and gross lewdness. He has other similar charges on his record dating back to 1992, the district attorney's office said.
According to prosecutors, a mother and teenage daughter told Boston police they were visiting Granary Burial Ground on Tremont Street on July 25 around 12:50 p.m. when a man exposed himself to the daughter. The daughter told her mother, who confronted the man across the street from the cemetery. The man denied any wrongdoing and walked away.
The mother contacted police and described the man as being 55 or older, about 5'10" tall, wearing dark glasses, a blue shirt and a hat with "Boston" on the front and carrying a green backpack.
Boston police obtained video surveillance footage from area buildings and isolated images of the man and the mother confronting him. Detectives issued a bulletin, and officers in the department's Sexual Offender Registry Unit identified the man as MacDonald. An arrest warrant was issued and MacDonald was taken into custody this week.
“It’s unfortunate for any young person to have an experience like this, but I praise her and her mother for acting so responsibly in providing police with a description of the incident and the person responsible. That information, combined with solid detective work, helped bring this defendant forward to answer to the charges," Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a statement.
