Nine-time flasher avoids prison with plea

RALEIGH - A Raleigh man avoided prison time Tuesday by admitting he exposed himself while watching a group of preteen cheerleaders in a Cary parking lot this fall. The conviction for indecent exposure was his ninth.

Many of Joseph Michael Hilliard's victims have been children, and incidents have occurred in places such as bookstores and the children's section of a public library, according to court records and news accounts. A Wake County prosecutor said Tuesday she agreed to a plea deal so Hilliard, 33, could get therapy.

Hilliard pleaded guilty to his first felony charge of indecent exposure while in the presence of a minor. In return for the plea, Superior Court Judge Kenneth Titus ordered Hilliard to register as a sex offender and attend sex offender therapy. Instead of a prison term of up to 10 months, Hilliard received three years of probation.

"He clearly needs treatment,"said Melanie Shekita, the Wake assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case.

Hilliard's eight previous convictions have been on misdemeanor charges of indecent exposure. Most of the incidents took place before a 2005 law that made it a felony to expose oneself in front of children.

In September, Hilliard was already on probation for an indecent exposure conviction when he parked in his car in front of the group of cheerleaders, ages 5 to 10, as they practiced in a parking lot, Shekita said.

The mother of one girl became suspicious, walked to his car and saw Hilliard exposed and masturbating. He covered up and drove away. The mother called Cary police, and they stopped him soon after and he confessed to police, Shekita said.

He told them "he knew it was wrong, so he stopped doing it," Shekita said.

Hilliard has never been known to act aggressively or touch a victim, according to Andrew McCoppin, who is Hilliard's lawyer, court records and news accounts of his previous arrests.

"He's never been convicted of any felony or any violent offense ever," McCoppin said. Hilliard will have to attend therapy while on probation, something that might not have happened in prison, McCoppin said.

"The prison system doesn't have a lot of resources for those sort of things," McCoppin said.

Shekita said the waiting lists to get into the prison system's therapy program are lengthy. She said she wanted to ensure Hilliard would get treatment and would have to register as a sex offender. He'll be monitored by probation officers as well, Shekita said.

Hilliard's arrest record stretches to 1999, when he was first charged with indecent exposure. That charge was later dismissed. He was arrested and charged with two misdemeanor counts of indecent exposure in 2001, and sentenced to probation.

In 2002, Raleigh police arrested him after he exposed himself to a group of students at Leesville Road High School who were gathered before a baseball game. Earlier that night, he had exposed himself to two girls, ages 13 and 8, in the children's section of a public library.

Cary police also arrested him that year after a young girl reported that he flashed his private parts at a Barnes & Noble bookstore.

Hilliard was convicted in all those cases.

He wasn't arrested again until October 2006, when a woman at the Carmike Blue Ridge 14 Cinema on Blue Ridge Road reported seeing a man expose himself, Jim Sughrue, spokesman for the Raleigh Police Department, said Tuesday. Hilliard was on probation for that offense when he was arrested this September in Cary.

He also has previous misdemeanor convictions of marijuana possession and damaging property.

Titus, the judge, declined to comment when reached late Tuesday afternoon.