A Florida woman reported being groped by a costumed creep during a pirate-themed parade on Saturday, police said.
The victim told police that an unidentified man — clad in a pirate hat, facial paint and dark sunglasses while chomping on a cigar — pulled down her shirt and exposed her right breast before using an ink stamp to mark her breast during the Gasparilla Parade of Pirates in Tampa.
“The victim provided police with a name and phone number of a friend who witnessed the incident and took a photograph of the suspect after the incident,” police spokesman Steve Hagerty wrote in an email obtained by The Post. “That witness provided a statement to police.”
Investigators later learned that the man identified as a possible suspect on Facebook reached out to the victim on the social media platform and provided the woman with a phone number, asking her to call him. That number was then provided to detectives by the victim, police said.
The victim was interviewed for a second time by police on Wednesday, Hagerty said. Police investigators also learned that the man believed to be the person in the Facebook photograph has retained an attorney.
Police have reached out to the man’s attorney in order to obtain a statement about the allegations, Hegerty said.
An investigation into the incident is ongoing and police declined to release the name of the victim or a possible suspect. But the woman identified herself to WFLA, saying she had grown up in Tampa and attended the parade every year without incident.
Rina Alvarez said she was catching beads during the 4½-mile parade — which celebrates a mythical Spanish pirate named Jose Gaspar who purportedly made southwest Florida his operating base during the late 18th century — when things took a drastic turn.
“He had a cigar in his mouth the whole time,” Alvarez told the station. “He pulled my shirt all the way down and was trying to stamp me. I screamed for him to stop. I was just in shock.”
Alvarez said she quickly received hundreds of comments after posting the man’s photo on Facebook, with some saying he looked like a member of a dance troupe who performed in the parade. The group acknowledged the allegation in a statement to WFLA.
“We are aware of the allegations made against an individual from our organization,” reps from Ye Mystic Krewe said. “The alleged behavior goes against the values and conduct required by this organization. We take the allegations seriously and pledge all available resources to the investigation. As parents, grandparents and siblings we must do all we can to stand against the type of behavior that has been alleged.”
Alvarez, meanwhile, said she just wants to ensure that the man is held accountable.
“No one is prepared for that,” she continued. “I was completely blindsided. I didn’t ask for it. Out of the hundreds of pirates that went by, not a one of them put their hands on me in an inappropriate way. They didn’t try to pull my outfit down. They didn’t grab me, nothing.”
