South Daytona, FL – A registered sex offender living in South Daytona is behind bars for trying to get a teenage boy to perform a sex act on him in a public bathroom.
46-year-old Kevin L. Gill was booked into Volusia County Jail on Tuesday, over 48 hours after the alleged incident took place at the Sunshine Park Mall on US 1 in South Daytona.
South Daytona Police Department Lieutenant Dan Dietrich says the victim – a 15-year-old Palatka resident – was going to a birthday party with his father when he went to use a public bathroom at the mall around 4pm Saturday.
“The 15 year old boy advised [that] 30 seconds after he entered a bathroom stall alone, an unknown male entered the bathroom then [entered] the stall next to him,” Dietrich stated. “The man sighed and asked the boy if he could perform a sex act on him.”
According to the arrest report, the teen didn’t reply to the man’s request and then texted his dad for help when the man started touching the boy’s shoe and then stuck his hand under the partition wall that separated them.
“The father entered the bathroom and called out to his son,” Dietrich stated. “His son exited the bathroom stall. The father and son stayed outside the bathroom and waited for the only person in the bathroom to exit.”
Police believe that man ignored the boy’s father when confronted outside the bathroom and walked away as the boy’s father followed him while on the phone with 911.
“As the officers arrived on scene, the father was not aware that a store within the plaza had an entrance/exit from the parking lot and one inside the mall,” Dietrich noted. “The suspect was able to leave before police could locate him.”
Gill was identified as the suspect by the boy after the father ran across Gill’s photo later on that day on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s sex offender database and reported it to SDPD, according to the arrest report.
A manager working at a store in the mall helped the father keep track of the suspect and also identified Gill as the suspect when SDPD showed him Gill’s mugshot, per the report.
As of 5pm Tuesday, Gill is held on no bond at VCJ on charges of lewd and lascivious conduct and solicitation.
Kevin L. Gill (mugshot courtesy Volusia County Jail)
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