Retired Huntington Park police chief pleads not guilty to indecent exposure

A retired Huntington Park police chief charged with indecent exposure pleaded not guilty Monday in an Orange County courtroom.

Anaheim police said Paul Lawrence Wadley, 56, had left sexually explicit photos in Anaheim parks and allegedly flashed a woman. He turned himself in Monday and was released on $15,000 bond in connection with the alleged misdemeanor.

Detectives last week conducted a search of the former chief’s home near Toyon Park, where many of the incidents occurred.

Detectives tied Wadley to the crimes after his fingerprint was found on one of the photos left at the park, said Anaheim Police Sgt. Rick Martinez.

Anaheim police said an eyewitness to the indecent-exposure incident gave a description that matched Wadley’s. They said they have additional evidence gathered from his home.

The investigation began Nov. 4 when a woman contacted Anaheim police to report she had found a photograph of “male genitalia� on the ground near a running trail at Oak Canyon Road in east Anaheim, Martinez said.

The woman told investigators she had found similar photographs on the trail on a previous occasion. She did not notify police then, she said, because she had destroyed the pictures.

In another incident Thanksgiving morning, a woman reported that she was hiking on a trail near Toyon Park when a man walked by and exposed himself to her by lowering his pants to his knees, police said.

And on Nov. 29, three women returned to their cars in the Toyon Park parking lot and found lewd photographs on the windshields, police said.

Patrol officers found additional photographs near the trail in the days after those incidents, Martinez said.

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