A convicted sex offender from Burlington County was arraigned today on charges he sexually assaulted a 12-year-old boy in the bathroom of a Garden State Parkway rest area in Monmouth County.
Mark Mandelbaum, 43, of Pemberton Township, is charged with sexual assault, child endangerment and lewdness stemming from an Aug. 4 incident at the Parkway rest area in Wall Township, Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis Valentin said.
The prosecutor said the boy was traveling with his family when they stopped to use the public restrooms. The boy went into the bathroom alone, but when his stepfather went in to check on him, he saw Mandelbaum sexually assaulting the boy, Valentin said.
The stepfather stopped the assault and Monmouth service area employees kept Mandelbaum at the scene until New Jersey State Police arrived, the prosecutor said.
Today was Mandelbaum's first court appearance since a grand jury indicted him on Dec. 21.
Mandelbaum was convicted in 1998 of child endangerment and ordered to register as a sex offender, according to the State Police sex offender registry.
The registry said his victim was a male under 13 years old and that Mandelbaum "follows juvenile males into public restrooms and peers over the stall." Released from the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Woodbridge in November 2004, Mandelbaum served two years of a four-year sentence for that offense.
If convicted of sexual assault, he faces up to 10 years in state prison or the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center. He has been in the Monmouth County jail in Freehold on $75,000 bail since his arrest.
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