By JOSEPH KELLARD
The employee, Juan Bayron Jr., 18, of Island Park, was arrested and charged with public lewdness for exposing his penis to a 12-year-old girl in an aisle while working in the supermarket, in Kohl's shopping center on Long Beach Road, according to police. The incident occurred on Nov. 27, after another woman called police to complain about Bayron¹s behavior toward her earlier last month.
The first complainant, a 41-year-old woman who is a longtime customer at the Oceanside Waldbaum's, said she was shopping there on Nov. 7 when she noticed an employee following her down several aisles and standing near her.
"By the fourth time, I thought, What is this guy doing?" the woman, who declined to be identified, told the Herald. "And when I turned around, I found him with his hands down his pants playing with himself."
She left the supermarket and called the store manager, Fred Ott, who told her to come in another day and point out the employee, she said. When she returned on Nov. 9, she said, Bayron was there and started following her again. "He brushed up against me and said something I couldn't make any sense of," she said.
After reading his name tag, she returned later with her fiancé and spoke to Ott, who said Bayron had left but that he would talk with him the next day. The woman went to the 4th Precinct station house to file a report, but police said there was nothing they could do if the suspect didn't actually expose himself.
When the woman returned to the store with her brother on Nov. 10, she said, her brother confronted Bayron, who denied the accusations, and Ott took his employee to a back room to talk. "The manager comes out and said he's denying that he did this, and basically told me he's a good employee," the woman said.
Unsatisfied, she called the supermarket chain¹s district manager, Charles Schiro, who returned her call on Nov. 27, saying that the company did a thorough, 40-minute investigation of Bayron, and that the person who investigated said he was an upstanding employee who did nothing wrong, she said.
The Herald found that Bayron had been arrested previously for first-degree robbery.
"I was completely ignored, like I was a liar and made up a story," the woman said. "... Well, I have three kids to take care of and better things to do with my time than to make up a story about some employee that I have no idea who he is."
The woman said that she told Schiro to do her a favor and call if Bayron hurts someone and gets arrested, so that she knows it is safe to shop there again. "I told the district manager that he's going to do something to someone else, and wouldn't you know, six hours later, Mr. Schiro did at least call me to say [Bayron had] been arrested. ... You know what, this could have all been prevented."
Ott declined to talk to the Herald about the incidents, and Schiro said, ³We¹re not commenting on it at all.²
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
