A person accused of indecent exposure by allegedly exposing their naked, half-erect penis to women at a Los Angeles spa has a long criminal record including previous sex offences, burglaries and trespass.
On Monday, Los Angeles police issued an arrest warrant for Darren Agee Merager, 52. The LA District Attorney has filed five charges of indecent exposure.
Merager claims they are a victim of transphobia, and said they will be turning themselves in to fight the case in court.
Neighbors, associates and court records for Merager, who was born a male, paint a picture of a troubled and lawless transient, who avoids their parents’ conservative Riverside neighborhood and has a history of exposing themselves in women’s locker rooms.
Their extensive criminal history includes three burglaries, two convictions for indecent exposure in 2002 and 2003, a third exposure case that Merager is still contesting, failure to register as a sex offender, unlawful carrying of a switchblade, three trespassing convictions, two guilty verdicts of loitering with intent to commit a crime, resisting arrest, reckless driving, driving without a license, unlawful taking of another’s vehicle without permission, and giving false identification to a police officer.
The blonde, blue-eyed Merager, who stands at 6’2” and weighs 200lbs according to LAPD records, has bounced around Los Angeles county for years, frequenting Marina Del Rey, Malibu and Pasadena.
Residency records show his most recent address in April last year in Sun City, Riverside, the home of his 76-year-old mother, Brenda.
Brenda and her partner declined to comment when approached by DailyMail.com, but residents of their middle class neighborhood said they had not ever seen Merager at the home.
Residents of the conservative enclave – adorned with police union stickers and Trump flags – are unlikely to be sympathetic to the troubled 52-year-old’s claim of ‘transphobic harassment’.
Transgender rights have become a political wedge issue with Democrats largely supporting the minority LGBTQ group and Republicans often being skeptical of their movement and claims of discrimination.
‘You allow [trans women] to go in there [women’s spaces] and then people simply claim indecent exposure and you’re arrested,’ Merager told the New York Post Thursday.
‘If you go into an area where you’re expected to be nude, there has to be an indecent exposure exemption.’
Merager has previously told LA courts that they do not have a home.
A poster released by LAPD warning of Merager’s previous arrest for indecent exposure said that the the 52-year-old is ‘transient’ with family in the oceanside LA county neighborhood of Marina Del Rey, close to the homeless hotspot of Venice Beach.
Merager registered a PO box in Marina in 2015, but no residential address.
The police poster shows a masculine-looking Merager with stubble, and says they drives a black 2008 GMC Yukon.
Police say Merager is a man, who has pretended to be a transgender woman in order to enter women’s locker rooms.
Merager was convicted of two burglaries in 2011 and 2012.
In one of the cases they were prosecuted alongside multiple alleged accomplices.
In 2000, Merager was convicted of trespassing as well as loitering with intent in two separate cases. They were convicted of trespassing again in 2001.
In 2002 and 2003 they were convicted of indecent exposure, then for failing to register as a sex offender in 2006.
Merager did not appear in a search of the Megan’s Law database, a list of registered sex offenders in California, or in the similar national federal database.
Merager began 2007 with a conviction for resisting arrest, then was convicted that year for providing a false ID to a police officer.
But serial criminal claimed in a recent civil court case that they have been physically attacked for their lifestyle and behavior. In a civil complaint filed in a Los Angeles court in April this year, Merager alleged they were parked on a public street outside a home in Malibu when the homeowner shoved them down a steep bank.
Merager claimed Mark Falvai ‘demanded to know why Plaintiff had parked a car in front of the Premises’ then ‘approached Plaintiff and completely unprovoked used two hands to push Plaintiff in Plaintiff’s chest.’
‘Defendant Falvai’s use of physical force caused Plaintiff to tumble down a steep embankment between the roadway and the Premises causing physical injury to Plaintiff,’ the court complaint said.
‘Plaintiff was able to climb the embankment and escape to safety inside his locked car.’
The court papers claimed Merager called police who arrested Falvai. The case settled out of court in August this year.
The current arrest warrant for Merager was issued after a minor girl and four adult women came forward to police alleging that Merager was partially erect in the women’s section of Wi Spa, a Korean spa in downtown Los Angeles in June this year.
The incident went viral after a woman shared a video of herself complaining about it to the spa’s staff, and even sparked a protest outside the spa with violent clashes between pro- and anti-trans activists.
Both LAPD and Riverside PD say Merager has not yet been arrested.
*story by DailyMail.com
