Man accused of hiding under cars so he can touch women’s feet

The woman was walking to her car in an Aldi parking lot in Lincoln, Neb., when she noticed that the vehicle parked next to hers was running, which struck her as odd.

Then, suddenly, a hand reached out from under that car and grabbed her ankle.

She screamed.

A man rolled out from under the car and ran off. Police found a man, 20-year-old Jesse Johnson, at a nearby Kohl’s store and arrested him for disturbing the peace.

It was the third time since March and the fourth time since June 2015 that Johnson had been cited for similar behavior.

“I just have this weird addiction and odd behavior,” Johnson told the Lincoln Journal Star last week. “I don’t know why.”

He denied touching the woman’s foot at Aldi. “I was hiding under the vehicle simply for the visual,” he said.

Johnson went to jail for seven days for a similar offense at a Lincoln Wal-Mart in March.

KOLN in Lincoln reported that a 55-year-old woman was loading her groceries into her truck when a hand emerged from under the truck and touched her foot.

Johnson was ticketed again on June 16 after a woman reported that someone under her car reached out and tried to grab her leg in the parking lot of a family medical group.

In June 2015 a judge fined Johnson $150 for a similar incident in a TJ Maxx parking lot, according to the newspaper.

“Some of these people never move beyond what they’re doing, similar to window peekers,” Capt. Jeri Roeder told the Journal Star. “And some, you know, graduate on to bigger and worse things. It’s always concerning whether he’s going to do something more serious.”

Johnson told the newspaper that he was seeing a counselor but then ran into money problems. He said he doesn’t think he’ll do anything like this again “if I get the help that I need.”

Prosecutors are expected to seek jail time for this latest incident.

This story was originally published June 27, 2016 at 10:35 AM with the headline "Man accused of hiding under cars so he can touch women’s feet."