Alleged peeping Tom arrested in Henderson

Jen Lawson

Thursday, Feb. 17, 2005 | 10:55 a.m.

Henderson Police arrested a 44-year-old convicted sex offender Monday night for allegedly peeping in the window of a woman's Green Valley apartment and exposing himself.

Police had Sammie Combs under surveillance because he was suspected of trying to break into a woman's apartment at the same place, the Invitational complex on Green Valley Parkway near Wigwam Parkway, in December.

He was charged with open and gross lewdness, attempted burglary and stalking.

While Combs' case goes beyond peeping, police wouldn't have been able to take much action against him if that had been all he had done.

Currently Nevada does not have a law addressing peeping Toms, but Metro Police are trying to get a state law passed that would make peeping a crime.

"The serial peeper that just constantly does the same thing over and over, we don't have the laws in place to deal with these incidents," Lt. Stan Olsen of Metro's intergovernmental affairs office said.

Henderson police said Combs had been spotted peeping in windows of female residents of the Invitational complex numerous times before he was caught exposing himself Monday night.

He was seen carrying what appeared to be junk mail in order to blend in with residents and even following a woman to her apartment and lingering outside her door, the police report says.

As officers watched through binoculars Monday, they said Combs looked into a woman's apartment window and unzipped his pants, according to the police report.

When police approached him, Combs told them he was the manager of a used car dealership and was in the area looking for repossessed cars, but he had no documentation with him that would support that claim, police said.

Combs is a registered Tier 1 sex offender with arrests for open and gross lewdness in 1985, prowling in 1989, and stalking and failing to register his new address with police in 1994.

He is being held at the Henderson Detention Center on $90,000 bail.

The proposed legislation would stop peepers before their behavior escalated, Olsen said.

A patrol officer suggested the legislation after responding last year to a call from a Las Vegas woman who was in bed when she heard some noise outside her window, Sgt. Robert Roshak said. She peered outside and spotted a man crouched in the bushes.

The man was gone when police arrived, but he left a knife behind, Roshak said. Even if police had caught him, their hands still would have been tied.

"The woman who called us that day, we had to say we're sorry, but there's nothing we can do," Roshak said.

If passed into law, this legislation would make it a misdemeanor for a person to peep through a window, door or other opening at their home.

If the peeper has a camera or video recording equipment it would make the crime a gross misdemeanor, and it would be bumped up to a felony if the person has a deadly weapon, Roshak said.

Police can nab peepers for trespassing, but Roshak said the penalty for it hardly has any teeth: On the first offense, the officer "trespasses" the person off the property, meaning the officer reads the offender the law and gives a warning. If the person returns to the property, at that point he or she can be arrested.

"Right now, we have nothing. This covers a loophole," Roshak said. "Citizens should have an expectation of privacy in their own homes."

Anyone who has information about the suspect can call Henderson Police at 267-4770 or Crime Stoppers at 385-5555.