Outlet mall rape suspect accused of exposing himself to girl at Jones Park, records show
Long before police arrested Andrew Malik Jones in two sexual assaults on the Mississippi Coast in July, he was arrested on a charge of felony voyeurism involving a minor girl, according to records obtained by the Sun Herald.
On Dec. 14, 2019, reports say, an 11-year-old girl encountered a man, later identified as Jones, in the women’s restrooms at Jones Park.
The girl said she went into a bathroom stall to use the restroom, reports say, when Jones walked out of an adjacent stall with his pants down and started peaking through the gaps between the stalls and watched the girl using the restroom.
When the girl walked out of the bathroom stall, the report said, she saw Jones on the bathroom floor with his genitals exposed and masturbating. The young girl ran out of the bathrooms.
Gulfport police got a description of the suspect and arrested Jones a short distance from the park on U.S. 90.
Following the arrest, Jones agreed to talk to Gulfport police about what happened.
In his version of events, Jones said he had gone into a bathroom stall in the women’s restroom, pulled down his pants and exposed his genitals and waited for a women to walk into the restrooms.
Jones said he was doing that because he thought that would entice a woman to have sex with him since he’d seen it work again and again in pornographic videos he watched, the report say.
In his description on what happened that day around 12:55 p.m., Jones said he was already in bathroom stall masturbating when the young girl walked in, saw him and ran out.
But in the charging documents, Jones is accused of doing exactly what the girl had alleged in her report to Gulfport police. The girl’s mother helped provide the statement.
Jones was later released from the Harrison County jail on a $25,000 bond.
In March 2020, a Harrison County grand jury indicted Jones on the voyeurism charge.
In addition to that charge, Jones is currently being held at the Harrison County jail on two counts of sexual battery, and one count each of aggravated assault and robbery.
The sexual battery charges stem from an alleged rape of a woman at Gulfport Premium Outlets and the alleged rape of a male inmate at the Harrison County jail, both of which occurred in July.
The robbery and aggravated assault charges stem from the attack at outdoor outlet mall.
Jones currently remains jailed in Harrison County on a total bond of $1.5 million.
This story was originally published August 3, 2021 at 5:12 PM.
