Saggy pants.
That's Courtney Stroggins’ excuse for why he's been arrested over and over for indecent exposure over the past two years. It’s happened in all kinds of public places -- DART stations, a laundromat, an ER hallway, and an apartment office.
Each time, women have reported Stroggins masturbating in public.
“Well a lot of times my pants sag because I don’t wear a belt,” Stroggins said in an interview at the Dallas County jail. “A lot of times I get accused of those things and it don't be true.”
Not likely, says Richardson resident Dina Alsaid.
“I know what I saw, what was happening, and that was not saggy pants,” Alsaid says.
The first time Stroggins was accused in Dallas County was in February 2015. A woman spotted him masturbating in public at a DART station in downtown Dallas.
The next month, a Richardson apartment manager told police that Stroggins acted like he was asking about apartments. She looked up to see him masturbating as he held a cell phone in one hand.
Alsaid encountered Stroggins in a laundromat in April 2015. She had just dropped her children at school.
She says she heard a rustling sound, looked to the right and saw Stroggins in the bathroom with the door open masturbating. The only other person in the laundromat was an elderly woman who left without noticing what was going on.
Alsaid ran to her car and called 911. She says Stroggins just watched her make the call before he finally took off on foot.
“Why anybody would want to sit there and have self-gratification in public, I can’t comprehend that,” she says.
Police found him and took him into custody.
In June 2015, while he was in jail, Stroggins repeatedly called a hotline number at Parkland Memorial Hospital for rape victims, according to court records. He made 73 calls to the hotline. He hung up 40 times. He made obscene comments in several of the calls, records show. That led to a harassment charge.
Stroggins pled guilty in September 2015 to two counts of indecent exposure and harassment. Alsaid’s case was dismissed as part of a plea deal. He got a 150-day jail sentence.
Because of that plea deal, Stroggins was required to register as a sex offender. He didn’t follow through and was arrested in December 2015 on a felony charge. He got a 60-day sentence in February 2016.
Again, he failed to register and was arrested in March 2016. That time, a judge gave him four years of deferred adjudication probation on that charge, as well as a felony evading case.
But Stroggins, 32, has repeatedly violated the terms of his probation.
Four times, prosecutors have tried to convince District Judge Teresa Hawthorne to revoke it. Each time, the judge has given Stroggins another chance.
Stroggins was arrested in December at the Parkland ER after a nurse reported seeing him masturbating in the hallway. She said he was looking directly at her.
His explanation is that his pants just "kind of fell."
Hawthorne released him Jan. 6 on a personal recognizance bond. That meant he did not have to pay any money to get out.
But Stroggins was back in jail 16 days later after a woman spotted him masturbating on a DART train in Richardson. Stroggins promises that if he’s let out this time, he’ll do better.
“I gave my life to God and I'm going to do the right thing,” he said. “Another thing [is] I'm just going to keep my pants pulled up because I think that's the issue.”
Stroggins is due back in court Thursday. We asked him how he thought it would go.
“I don't know,” he said. “It's looking kind of bad.”