Chester Lee Hatton - Repeat Sex Offender - Preying on girls in public restroom

A registered sex offender was arrested after police said he tried to snap photographs of girls in a mall restroom.

Springdale police said 45-year-old Chester Lee Hatton confessed to trying to photograph a partially nude 12-year-old girl with his cell phone after he followed her into a restroom at Tri-County Mall.

"That is pretty brazen," said Mike Mathis, of Springdale police. "Obviously the people in the room are going to be aware when a person starts looking in on them, trying to stick their cell phone in on them."

Police said Hatton was charged with voyeurism in the May 25 incident at Dillard's and then again June 20 in a Sears restroom, and officers said he was a suspect in a similar incident at B.J. Brew House.

"Almost no different than someone who has a drug addiction or gambling or any other kind of addiction, it's a compulsion that they find hard, if not irresistible, to deal with," Mathis said.

"25% of all sex offenders re-offend within 15 years"
.........Sarah Tofte