HURON TWP. — Deputies arrested a man accused of inappropriately touching three underage girls Sunday.
Brandon Arven, 21, of Gas City, Indiana, was charged with one count of third-degree felony gross sexual imposition.
Deputies responded to Kalahari Resorts before 9 p.m. after resort security told them girls reported being touched by a man in the resort’s arcade, according to an Erie County Sheriff’s Office report.
Two girls told deputies they were playing a game in the arcade when a man walked behind them and brushed against the buttocks of one girl without saying anything, the report states.
The girls moved to another area of the arcade, and the second girl said while she was bending over to put a card into a machine the same man walked behind her, touched her buttocks also and said “sorry,” according to the report.
“Both (girls) advised they felt they were bumped into as an excuse to touch them,” an Erie County deputy wrote in their report.
A woman said her daughter also reported being touched in the same way, according to the report.
Deputies showed a surveillance image of the suspect to the alleged victims, and all three identified the suspect as the man who touched them.
Deputies found that man, identified as Arven, and arrested him, the report states. Arven told deputies he was in the arcade looking for his girlfriend, and said he’d only bumped into adults and apologized to them.
Arven told deputies he did not brush against the girls, according to the report.
Deputies said surveillance video from the arcade showed Arven walk past the first two girls several times before he allegedly stuck out his arm and brushed one girl’s buttocks, the report states.
“From the video, plenty of space is observed that Brandon could have easily walked by without making physical contact to (the girl),” Deputy Ben Sargent wrote in a report.
Arven later told law enforcement in an interview that he’d drank champagne while being on different medications and that made him “freaked out,” the report states. After a detective showed Arven the security video footage, he said he did not remember what happened and denied touching the girls intentionally.
Arven remains in the Erie County jail without bond as of Tuesday afternoon.