A convicted sex offender who spent two years in federal prison for child porn has now been charged in connection with exposing himself to children numerous times over the past year in Mesa.
Graham Roberts Drewes hung out regularly near Maple Circle and Dover Street while sitting in the driver's seat of his silver sedan — without his pants on, police allege in court documents.
Drewes' latest brush with indecency began in July 2017, police say, when two 13-year-old girls reported they saw him near East Des Moines Street and East Dover Street in Mesa.
The teenagers told police they walked near Drewes’ car and saw him sitting alone, without pants, and masturbating in the driver’s seat, a booking sheet states. One teenager took a photo of Drewes’ license plate but admitted police she was too embarrassed to tell her parents about the incident.
One of the girls later told police she saw Drewes’ car parked in her neighborhood at least six times after the initial masturbating encounter. On June 12, 2018, the teenager finally told her parents, who informed police about Drewes after hearing other neighborhood children talk about similar incidents.
Around 8 p.m. on June 12 of this year, police were notified of a man who had been driving without pants for over an hour in the same vicinity as the first two incidents. It was the same man, witnesses told police, who had been masturbating in front of children in the neighborhood for several months.
A neighborhood man reportedly followed Drewes and approached his vehicle to find the repeat offender without pants once again, though reports did say he had a towel covering his genitals this time. The man took a photo of Drewes and provided it to Mesa police, who began surveilling Drewes the next day at his Mesa home.
Police arrested Drewes during a traffic stop on June 27 after he left his home and drove to the Mesa neighborhood he was known to haunt. According to court records, police report Drewes admitted to frequenting the Mesa neighborhood with “no legitimate reason.” However, it should be noted all the homes near Drewes’ predatory path were less than one mile from Entz Elementary School.
Drewes is already on lifetime probation as a sex offender and is supposed to avoid all contact with children.
The former licensed pest-control worker for Terminix was caught by federal authorities with 1,436 images and 86 videos of child porn on his computer. He was sentenced to two to four years in 2013. U.S. Bureau of Prison records show he was released on September 25, 2015.
Drewes also has one prior conviction for sexual indecency in Ohio.
