A 28-year-old man with a history of harassing and stalking women in the Norwich area is accused of exposing himself to an 11-year-old Florida girl and others participating in online classes.

The case of David J. Rose, whose last known address was 303 Mohegan Park Road, Lot 54, Norwich, has been pending quietly for several months in New London Superior Court, where his attorney has filed paperwork indicating she will be pursuing an insanity defense for her client.

Norwich police charged Rose in September 2019 with second-degree breach of peace, public indecency and risk of injury to a child. He has pleaded not guilty and is free on a $30,000 bond.

Public records indicate Rose has convictions dating back to 2011, and has served six- and 10-month prison stints and several years of probation for unlawful restraint, public indecency, breach of peace, second-degree stalking, second-degree harassment and second-degree threatening. In 2013, he was charged with attempting to abduct a 17-year-old girl who was jogging in Mohegan Park. The victim said a man wearing a black trench coat and white mask grabbed her, and that when she escaped, he exposed himself to her.

In June 2019, the FBI notified Norwich police that it had received a complaint through its National Threat Operations Center that Rose had exposed himself repeatedly in video chat rooms while taking online lessons with the San Diego-based company takelessons.com.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Steven Cox, chief executive officer of takelessons.com, told Norwich police Detective Christopher R. Chastang the company first heard in March 2019 that someone was exposing his genitals and masturbating during online classes. Cox said the company spent thousands of dollars in technical assistance as they attempted to block Rose from accessing classes and had lost revenue due to canceled classes. Cox said Rose had used 12 separate user names and numerous IP addresses to log on to the site.

Between June 8 and 13, 2019, the company recorded 12 incidents in which Rose exposed himself.

On June 8, Rose allegedly signed on to the site as "Jack" for a singing lesson. The 11-year-old girl requested to be "spotlighted" so she could show the instructor and class her progress. Spotlighting allows the instructor to display the video feed of particular students to the entire class. Rose requested to be "spotlighted" at the same time, and exposed himself while calling out the victim's name and stating it was "for her," according to the affidavit.

Interviewed in Florida by the St. John's County Sheriff's Department, the 11-year-old said that during the singing class, "Jack" had pulled his pants down, exposing his private parts to everyone on the video feed, and that the teacher shut off his feed within about three seconds.  

The company provided video clips to Norwich detectives, who identified Rose based on his previous interactions with the police. During one 42-second clip, Rose could be seen waving at the camera and speaking to the class, according to the affidavit. Then he stood up halfway through the video, exposed his penis and masturbated for approximately 10 seconds. He sat down, and the video ended, according to the affidavit.

When Norwich detectives went to Rose's home in July 2019, he refused to speak with them and stayed in his bedroom, according to the affidavit. When the investigators told Rose's mother, Juliana Rose, about the complaints, she stated, "We are sexual people, and if people are on the Internet they can leave a Website if they don't like what they see,'' according to the affidavit. Rose's parents did say they don't always know what he is doing on his bedroom computer, and that they would turn off the internet service to stop the incidents.

Rose is represented by attorney Jennifer Zito, who in October notified the court the defense would be pursuing an insanity defense. To prove insanity, the defense would have to convince the court that when he committed the crime, Rose lacked capacity as a result of mental disease or defect to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to control his conduct.

His next court date is Feb. 11.

k.florin@theday.com