The man responsible for illegally entering a West Campus dormitory and exposing himself to a female student in February pleaded guilty in Tompkins County Court on March 30.
Cornell University Police Department announced in a Facebook post on Monday afternoon that Floyd G. Slater Jr. was arrested on March 6. He entered Founders Hall on February 15 and exposed himself to a female student who was showering before fleeing in an unknown direction, The Sun previously reported.
Slater, who was in the Tompkins County Jail on a probation violation since February 16, pleaded guilty to second-degree attempted burglary and public lewdness on March 30, according to the Facebook post.
He faces three to seven years in state prison and up to five years of post-release supervision and is scheduled to be sentenced after a pre-sentence investigation.
“I was troubled to hear this happened in our community and specifically in one of our residential facilities,” said CUPD Police Chief Kathy Zoner. “The investigative work by our investigators and all other officers involved was key to bringing these cases to a successful close and subsequent arrest. We recognize this does not minimize the impact of these crimes on the victims but hope that knowing the defendant is no longer free to victimize others offers some solace.”
CUPD’s Facebook post also notes that there have been “a series of similar reports in Ithaca during the previous six months.”
Officer Jamie Williamson, public information officer for the Ithaca Police Department, told The Sun in an email on Tuesday that over the past six months, four similar incidents were reported to IPD, all of which occurred on private property and none of which “involved an attempted entry into a residence.”
Williamson also said none of the four incidents were affiliated with the University.
Court documents show that Slater is a registered sex offender who was convicted in 2013 of felony second-degree attempted rape of a 14-year-old girl, as reported by The Ithaca Voice. It was also reported that he was sentenced to six months in jail and 10 years of probation.
Slater was previously arrested by CUPD in 2015 for allegedly engaging in three lewd incidents on Cornell’s East Campus, as previously reported by The Sun. In one instance, a woman saw a man masturbating in a vehicle, and two other reports were made to CUPD about a man in a vehicle “yelling lewd comments and making lewd gestures toward the victims, both females.”
Regarding the alleged masturbation incident, Slater said in court documents that he had spilled coffee on himself while delivering newspapers on campus and was changing his pants, according to The Ithaca Voice.
Slater did however admit to shouting profanities at two women who were walking down the sidewalk in two separate incidents while he was driving. He also said that he had asked if the women would partake in oral or sexual conduct with him, according to The Ithaca Voice.
After those incidents, Slater was arraigned on a class A misdemeanor for public lewdness in the Town of Ithaca Court, The Sun previously reported.