A transient arrested for lewd behavior five times in the last three years was again arrested Monday on suspicion of lewd behavior.
Harry Joshua Hirst, 47, of Newhall, was arrested by deputies of the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station Monday morning after they received reports of a man with his shorts off masturbating on Main Street in Newhall.
“We received indecent exposure in progress, now calls for a man sitting on the sidewalk with his shorts down, reportedly masturbating,” Shirley Miller, spokeswoman for the SCV Sheriff’s Station, said Tuesday.
The calls reported the incident as occurring at 9:30 a.m. on the 24200 block of Main Street, she said.
“A few different people witnessed this,” she said, noting witnesses also saw the suspect on Railroad Street and Market Street.
Deputies responding to the call found a man matching the description given to them by witnesses, on Market Street and Newhall Avenue.
Hirst was arrested on suspicion of indecent exposure, a felony, and for committing a lewd act, a misdemeanor.
In February 2018, Hirst — sometimes identified in arrest reports prepared by deputies as a transient, sometimes unemployed, as a laborer or working in construction — pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of engaging in lewd conduct, Ricardo Santiago, spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, said at the time.
Hirst was immediately sentenced to 360 days in Los Angeles County Jail, and was released early.
On July 4, 2018, after Hirst had been arrested four times in 18 months on suspicion of indecent exposure and sentenced to just under a year in county jail, he was arrested on three outstanding arrest warrants for suspicion of soliciting or engaging in a lewd act in public view.
Hirst was also ordered to stay away from a coffee shop on Lyons Avenue, near Peachland Avenue, Santiago said.
Hirst also admitted in February 2018 to being in violation of probation on six prior cases, Santiago said at the time.
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