A New York City man has been sentenced to 2 ½ years in state prison for forcing way into a college dorm and masturbating in front of a co-ed.
Ariel Caro, 32, was sentenced this week for the Sept. 11, 2018 incident at the Pace University campus in Pleasantville. Caro was not a student at the school when he reportedly pushed his way into the victim’s dorm room after she opened the door, and then blocked her exit, according to the New York Post.
“At that point, Caro exposed himself and proceeded to masturbate in front of her,” prosecutors said in a release. When he refused to leave, the student “began to repeat a series of expressions, acting, she said, as if she suffered from a form of autism, as she had seen on television.”
“As she got louder, he chose to flee,” the release said.
Caro was later apprehended in a vacant dorm room he had broken into earlier in the night. He was charged with burglary and felony sex abuse.
At his sentencing Monday, prosecutors read a statement from the victim, who considered dropping out of college after the incident because she was left traumatized.
“This attack was heinous and the attacker in my opinion is a threat to society,” the statement said. “I hope one day I will feel safe again and not so helpless, a feeling I never had before this horrible attack.”
Caro was also sentenced to 10 years post-release supervision and will have to register as a sex offender when he is released, per dailyvoice.com.
