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Park City Police Arrest Serial Exposer

Park City Police arrested a Cottonwood Heights man on Wednesday in connection to multiple alleged incidents of indecent exposure at several Park City hotel swimming pools.

57-year-old John Midthun was arrested and booked into Summit County Jail on three counts of lewdness involving a child and lewdness first or second offense on Wednesday. According to a probable cause statement Midthun had exposed himself wearing nothing but a Santa hat on several different occasions at Park City hotels often near swimming pools to a number of different minors, mostly girls.

On one occasion the man reportedly told a young woman to take her top off and on other occasions he masturbated in a hallway overlooking the swimming pool. Four of the exposures occurred during Park City’s annual Santa Pub Crawl. The first reported exposure occurred in 2016, with the final incident occurring Wednesday night.

During the 2019 Santa Pub Crawl an undercover police surveillance was set up in order to capture the man. That evening the man entered the Silver King Hotel and stood on an elevated hallway observing the swimming pool occupied by two female decoys. When an officer started to approach the suspect, he quickly exited the hotel, got into his car and sped away. Police were able to see the fleeing suspect’s vehicle and license plate. The car was registered to John Midthun. Midthun’s photo and descriptors in his driver’s license also matched descriptions provided by previous victims. Hotel employees were also able to identify Midthun in a photo line-up.

In January officers obtained a warrant to place a GPS tracker on Midthun’s truck. On Wednesday, January 29, officers observed on the GPS tracker, that Midthun’s truck was in a parking lot near Silver King Hotel, Marriott Mountainside Hotel and the Lodges Hotel. Officers received reports that lewdness in the presence of children had just occurred inside the Silver King Hotel. Officers performed a traffic stop and Midthun was arrested at gunpoint at 7:00 pm.

Two victims from Wednesday’s incident were able to identify Midthum in photo line-ups.

Midthun invoked his Miranda rights and did not conduct an interview with officers. His bail was set at $50,000.

KPCW reporter David Boyle covers all things in the Heber Valley as well as sports and breaking news.
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