DA Calls Ronkonkoma Man a 'Serial Offender' After Fifth Public Lewdness Charge

A woman who says a driver exposed himself to her outside a Stony Brook movie theater last winter went to police only this month, after she saw the man's face in news coverage of his other cases. The arrest that followed is the fifth public lewdness case brought this year against Nicholas Critelli of Ronkonkoma, and Raymond Tierney, Suffolk's district attorney, is using it to renew his attack on the state's bail rules.

Suffolk police took Critelli into custody on Thursday, Oct. 22. Judge Steve Weissbard of District Court arraigned him on Friday on a single count of public lewdness, which is a class B misdemeanor, the district attorney's office said.

Prosecutors laid out the new allegation this way. On Feb. 26, at about 10:22 in the morning, Critelli was behind the wheel of a dark gray Nissan Altima in the lot at the AMC Stony Brook 17. He pulled up beside a woman who was putting her shopping into her car, looked at her and began to masturbate, the charges say. The woman did not know who he was at the time. She connected the incident to him when his photo appeared in coverage of his court appearance the previous weekend, and she then contacted police.

That February date now makes the Stony Brook case the earliest of the five.

The first two cases date to early June in Sayville. On the night of June 4, at roughly 9:53, Critelli allegedly masturbated while a woman watched in the lot of a Target store there. Two days later, around 4:30 in the afternoon, he was parked on a residential street in Sayville when he called to a woman who was walking by, asked her for her Snapchat details and masturbated as she stood there, prosecutors said.

Police arrested him on June 16 and gave him a desk appearance ticket. When he appeared on July 6 in District Court, where Judge Susan Berland heard the case, on two misdemeanor lewdness counts, the judge let him go without bail, on his own recognizance.

Those two cases were still open in October, when two more women reported him. Prosecutors said that at about 9:40 p.m. on Oct. 1 he sat in his car in a Walmart lot at the Centereach Mall and masturbated where a passing woman could see him. Shortly before 9:30 p.m. on Oct. 14, he was parked at a Target in Commack and shouted to a woman, "Oh my god. You're so pretty. Are you from around here?" while committing the same act, the charges say.

Fourth Squad detectives investigated, and he was arrested shortly after noon on Oct. 16 in a lot along Deer Park Avenue in Deer Park, Suffolk police said. The next day Judge Alonzo Jacobs arraigned him on two more counts and placed him on supervised release. Prosecutors told the court on the record that they would have asked for bail if the law had let them, arguing that the pattern of conduct made him a clear danger to the public.

None of the five cases qualifies for bail under New York law, which bars prosecutors from requesting it and judges from imposing it for these charges, the district attorney's office said.

After the October arrests, Tierney said the law allowed Critelli to keep offending "again and again and again." He went further after the latest arraignment.

"How many more victims must come forward before state lawmakers realize that our bail laws are completely failing law-abiding citizens?" Tierney said. "This is now the defendant's fifth criminal case alleging deplorable behavior against women who are simply going about their day."

He is represented by Suffolk County's Legal Aid Society. His next court date is Nov. 4. A criminal charge is only an accusation, and a defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

Suffolk police want to hear from anyone who believes Critelli may have targeted them. Detectives can be reached at 631-854-8452.