DOCUMENT: Sports, Crime

Ballpark Urinal Creeper Nabbed For Child Porn

Bathroom hopper was busted at Texas Rangers game

Urinal

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MLB Urinal Peeper

JULY 24--A man who was spotted going from bathroom to bathroom and “looking over at young boys who were using urinals” at the Texas Rangers ballpark is facing a federal child pornography charge after a police search of his cell phone revealed an illicit image of a “nude, prepubescent male.”

Michael Manske, 48, was arrested yesterday after being named in a July 20 felony complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth. Citing Manske’s criminal history and the possibility that he would flee, a magistrate ordered him held without bail in advance of trial.

Manske, a ranch foreman, has been listed on the Texas sex offender registry due to a 2010 conviction that resulted in a two-year probation term. The online offender registry lists his projected “ending registration date” as February 26, 2012.

Manske, wearing a Texas Rangers t-shirt, is pictured in the above mug shot.

According to the complaint, Manske was at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington on May 13, when cops were “alerted to a report of a white male who was entering multiple men’s restrooms” at the stadium (where the home team was playing the Los Angeles Angels). Witnesses believed the suspect was watching boys at urinals in bathrooms on the main concourse level.

An Arlington Police Department officer working part-time at the ballpark watched as Manske loitered in one bathroom for several minutes. After Manske left and went to another restroom, he was confronted by the cop.

Manske, whose ticket was in the upper concourse, admitted that he had twice been busted for indecent exposure. When a records check revealed that Manske had an outstanding traffic warrant, he was arrested. Before being transported to the Arlington jail, cops searched Manske and seized his Ericsson cell phone.

An examination of the phone “revealed three visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct,” including the photo that forms the basis for the felony charge. The federal complaint describing Manske’s bathroom-hopping was sworn by a Department of Homeland Security agent.

While not specifically described by federal investigators, the three images do not appear to have been snapped in bathrooms at Rangers Ballpark. (4 pages)