Category Archive for : ‘CLOWNS AND CHARACTERS’

Matthew Wendland, a 20 year old Walt Disney World actor, has been charged with having child pornography.  Wendland portrayed the Beast throughout Disney’s theme parks but he also dressed up as the character Goofy.  He was arrested after his roommate allegedly found some of his sexually explicit photographs of children and called police.  He is charged with 51 felony counts of child pornography.  On the floor beneath his bed, deputies found a CD-ROM with nearly 1,000 pornographic images involving children and a dozen downloaded Internet photos of children under 10

Zay Harold Jones, a 73 year old convicted sex offender who was playing Santa Claus, has been accused of taking indecent liberties with an 11 year old girl who portrayed Santa’s elf.  The child told a woman in a rest room that Jones had touched her inappropriately as he drove her in his car.  The girl got help after convincing Jones that she was sick and needed to stop.  The woman called police and waited with her.

(Forest City, North Carolina)

Michael Chartrand, 36, of St. Cloud, Florida, went on trial in August on charges that he molested a 13 year old girl in February while clad as Tigger at the Walt Disney park. Walt Disney World demanded that the Tigger outfit worn by the employee when he allegedly molested the girl be altered for the trial. Disney wanted the suspect’s costume dyed black or white and its ears removed. They wanted to take off everything that would make it look like Tigger.

The victim said that while she was

A federal judge says Richard Hobbs, a 48 year old convicted pedophile, has the right to perform as a clown for adults and children at Playland in Rye.  Manhattan federal Judge John Martin ruled that Hobbs was denied his First Amendment right to free speech when the county-owned facility told him he couldn’t perform his balloon-bending act in the park.  In 2000 he had asked Playland for a permit but his request was denied by a park official who cited a regulation that bars soliciting in all Westchester County parks.

Christopher Bayer, 29, was convicted of sodomizing a boy he helped train as a clown.   Bayer, of 178 N. Queens Ave., works as a circus clown called Smiley.  He was arrested after a man found him engaging in a sexual act with the man’s son and called police.   He was convicted of nine out of 13 counts after the jury deliberated for 6 1/2 hours.  The crimes for which he was found guilty included multiple counts of sodomy, sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.  He was acquitted

Norman Edward Rose, a convicted child sex offender, was arrested after complaints that he dressed up as a clown and inappropriately touched several young girls at a Christmas parade.  Rose, who will turn 64 on Sunday, was not invited to the weekend march on December 2 but allegedly donned a familiar disguise and joined in anyway.  People at the parade alerted patrol officers that a clown riding a scooter was touching children inappropriately, they told him to stop what he was doing and leave the parade.  According to APBnews.com, police