More News

Laurel Scout mentor on peeping Tom charges

Tuesday, April 4, 2006

A Boy Scout counselor from Laurel has been charged with using his cell phone to take pictures of an 8-year-old boy in an Arundel Mills bathroom.

Andrew Malone Gipson, 32, of the 7000 block of Ashford Boulevard was arrested by Anne Arundel County Police Friday on charges of taking a picture in a private place with prurient intent and being a peeping Tom. He was being held at a county detention center Tuesday on $30,000 bond, police said.

A phone list on the Web site for the Baltimore Area Council’s Four Rivers District listed Gipson as one of 38 merit badge counselors for cycling.

Gipson was found with a picture of the boy on his cell phone after the boy’s father, who went into the bathroom to check on his son, reported the incident to mall security, police said. Security detained the suspect until police arrived. The victim was not injured.

The alleged crime took place 7:37 p.m. Friday in the men’s bathroom near Neighborhood 3 in the Arundel Mills mall in Hanover, according to police.

E-mail Steve Earley at searley@gazette.net.