New Craigslist "Group Sex" Bust

APRIL 22--Meet Philip Conran.

In a bid to torment a female neighbor with whom he was fighting, the Connecticut man allegedly placed a phony Craigslist ad directing men seeking 'group sex' to the woman's home, police charge. Conran, a 42-year-old chef, today made his initial court appearance in connection with reckless endangerment and harassment counts filed as a result of the fake April 5 online classified.

Investigators tied Conran to the Craigslist 'casual encounters' posting--which was purportedly placed by a 'West Hartford soccer mom' and headlined 'looking for lust'--through an analysis of records obtained from Craigslist and AT&T Internet Services, according to an arrest affidavit. When cops tracked an IP address to Conran's home, he confessed to posting the 'party sex' ad directing men to next-door neighbor Terry Sharp's Dartmouth Avenue home.

Conran, free on $75,000 bond, is the second person to be arrested as a result of the Craigslist posting. Richard Zeh, one of about a dozen men who showed up to answer the ad, was charged with burglary, sexual assault, and trespassing after he groped and made obscene comments to a 18-year-old woman. Zeh, a 29-year-old personal trainer, accosted the woman after mistakenly going to the wrong West Hartford address. Zeh told police that he was 'bored' when he decided to answer the Craigslist ad. He acknowledged that the button on his shorts had 'fallen off' and that his 'pubic hair and his erect penis could have been sticking out of his pants' when he walked into the teenager's residence. (6 pages)