DECEMBER 30--Meet Rafael Escamilla.

Arrested this week for allegedly masturbating while seated next to a teenage girl on an airplane flight, the 50-year-old suspect told police that he was actually massaging and itching himself because he had spilled Tabasco sauce on his penis.

Escamilla’s unique explanation for his alleged indecent exposure is contained in police reports detailing the December 26 incident on a SkyWest Airlines flight from Salt Lake City to Lewiston, Idaho. Escamilla, a Florida resident, was in Idaho visiting family.

The girl, a high school cheerleader who just turned 17, told cops that she was seated directly next to Escamilla, and had chatted briefly with him at the trip’s outset. Mid-flight, as she looked at prom dresses in Seventeen magazine, the teenager spotted something moving “out of my corner of my eye.”

In a handwritten statement, the girl recalled, “I looked over and I could clearly see the man’s penis going side to side under the tray table that was down.” Escamilla, she added, had one hand on his laptop (which was atop the tray table) and the other “under the tray table.” Escamilla is pictured in the above mug shot.

After waiting two to three minutes, the girl--who was traveling alone on the flight--got up to go to the bathroom. When she emerged, the teen sat next to a woman seated at the back of the plane, and told the woman that, “the guy that she was sitting with creeped her out.”

Upon arrival at Nez Perce County Regional Airport, the girl, upset and crying, told her father about what had transpired on the flight. The man contacted a Transportation Security Administration supervisor, who in turn summoned Lewiston Police Department officers.

When confronted by cops, Escamilla denied exposing himself. “I wasn’t out, I wasn’t hanging out,” he claimed. As reported by Officer Chris Reese, Escamilla “explained to me that he had spilled Tabasco sauce or something similar on his ‘penis’ and had an incredible itch.” He was rubbing his groin, Escamilla explained, “because it was the worst ‘itch in the world.’” Escamilla said he tried to be discreet by covering himself with his laptop, but that the girl must have “suspected something.”

During further questioning, Escamilla changed his Tabasco story, claiming that it “might” be from his breakfast that morning “as he did have Tabasco sauce with his eggs.” Asked why he did not just go to the bathroom to “take care of this problem,” Escamilla told Reese that he “didn’t feel that it would help.”

Reese noted that Escamilla used the words “rub” and “massage” to describe how he addressed the “incredible itch.” The cop reported that, “while I was speaking with [Escamilla], he never showed any obvious signs that he had an itch in this particular part of his body.”

Escamilla was then handcuffed and transported to the county jail, where the above mug shot was snapped. He was charged with a misdemeanor count of indecent exposure, and a District Court hearing was set for January 18.

According to an online biography, Escamilla is an accomplished physical therapist who holds a Ph.D. and has worked as a professor at Duke University and California State University. Escamilla currently works as research director at the Florida orthopedics and sports medicine institute founded by Dr. James Andrews, the noted surgeon whose clientele has included Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning, Charles Barkley, Jack Nicklaus, Roger Clemens, and Drew Brees. (6 pages)