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SALEM — Under most circumstances, information about Tyler Jacquard's past history of public masturbation would be considered inadmissible evidence at his trial on an open and gross lewdness charge. 

It's the sort of detail that might bias a jury, more prejudicial than probative. 

But when it became clear on Wednesday that Jacquard's defense is that he didn't realize that sitting in his car in a parking lot, masturbating, with people nearby, was a crime, it opened the door for a prosecutor to present evidence of one prior incident, a Salem Superior Court judge ruled on Wednesday. 

Jacquard, 36, a Level 3 sex offender even before his most recent arrest, has a history of arrests and convictions for similar conduct in cars. He has also been charged but not convicted in at least two incidents on the campuses of Wellesley and Endicott colleges, in which he was allegedly peering into dorm rooms. 

The Melrose man was arrested for the most recent time in June 2020, after a Reading woman who had stopped at Lynnfield's Market Street shopping center to pick up lunch pulled into a space next to Jacquard's parked car and saw him masturbating. 

The woman, Siobhan McManus, who had a 1-year-old in a child's car seat in the back of her Honda CRV, testified on Wednesday she was about 2 feet from Jacquard's car when she looked down and "saw his hand going up and down" in his basketball shorts. She then saw his exposed penis, she testified under questioning by prosecutor Lindsay Nasson.

McManus also noticed that he appeared to be staring at a group of girls standing near her vehicle. 

"Shocked and disgusted," she began taking video as she got out of her SUV and yelled at him to leave and that she was calling police. 

As Jacquard backed out, she was able to get a shot of his license plate, which is how Lynnfield police Officer Marco DePalma connected Jacquard to the incident. 

Jacquard was found and arrested two days later, in the parking lot of a Walmart in North Reading. On the seat beside him was a can of cooking spray, a paper towel, and a packet of beef jerky, North Reading Officer Greg Connolly testified. 

Defense lawyer Kristen Graves had already stipulated that her client was the man in the car at the Lynnfield shopping plaza on June 14, 2020. 

Her questions to McManus and DePalma focused on whether Jacquard had tried to get anyone's attention. 

With the jury out of the courtroom, Nasson told Judge Hélène Kazanjian she wants to call another witness, a retired Wakefield police officer who found Jacquard parked near Lake Quannapowitt in 2013.

Nasson said that officer would testify that Jacquard admitted to pulling over to masturbate whenever he saw a "hot" girl, and that he warned Jacquard that what he was doing was a crime. 

"If the defense is arguing and suggesting that the defendant was just innocently pleasuring himself, by himself," Nasson told the judge, "I think I have the right to explore his state of mind." 

Graves objected to the prosecution's request to introduce testimony about the 2013 incident, saying it would amount to prejudicial admission of prior bad acts. 

Kazanjian, the judge, told the lawyer that she'd opened a door. 

"You're arguing, based on everything I've seen, that he was not intending for this to be public exposure or did not act with reckless disregard for the risk of exposure, and it seems that it goes to that," Kazanjian told Graves. 

Graves argued that the earlier incident was years ago and shouldn't be used to show his state of mind in 2020. 

"The fact it's happened before and he was caught before shows that he was aware of the risk of public exposure," the judge responded. 

The retired officer is expected to be on the witness stand Thursday. 

The case went to trial this week after Jacquard balked at a different judge's proposed sentence of 2½ years in jail, with 20 months to be served and the remaining 10 months suspended for three years. 

Graves had been under the impression that Jacquard would receive credit for the time he'd spent on house arrest while out on $30,000 cash bail, posted by the Massachusetts Bail Fund, in the case. When told he would not be given any jail credit for time spent at home, she asked for a trial. 

Courts reporter Julie Manganis can be reached at 978-338-2521, by email at jmanganis@salemnews.com or on Twitter at @SNJulieManganis

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