The Connecticut man who was arrested during his son's fifth grade class trip after allegedly molesting some of the girls was arraigned yesterday. A prosecutor claims that Tomas Manzano, 35, told one girl, "You're so pretty - you should date my son so I can see you," while also drinking from a water bottle full of vodka.
Bail was set at $200,000, and the Post reports, "his wife sobbed and his 9-year-old son watched from the audience" when Manzano was held on sexual abuse charges. Prosecutors also claimed he "touched the cheeks, backsides and inner thighs of his victims and tickled their private parts," according to the Daily News.
Manzano's lawyer Paul Petrus argued, "For 35 years, my client has had no criminal convictions. And he's a family man. He's a husband. He's a regular middle-class man." He admitted that Manzano, who was laid-off as a clerical staffer from a law firm last year and had been teaching snowboarding, "wasn't perhaps in his usual self" but also called the allegations the kind of rumors that emerge when someone has been drinking around kids.
Manzano was one of dozens chaperoning fifth graders from Stillmeadow Elementary in the city. He was reportedly normal at the Central Park Zoo, but then was belligerent when confronted outside of Mars 2112. It took many police officers to subdue him.
