Prosecutors: Registered sex offender exposed himself at Amherst Public Library in February

A registered Mahoning County sex offender is facing multiple criminal charges in Lorain County Common Pleas Court for allegedly exposed his genitals and showing pornography to a juvenile employee at the Amherst Public Library in February. Justin F. Moore, 36, of Youngstown, was being held in the Lorain County Jail on $2,500 bond. He has pleaded not guilty to one count each of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles and pandering obscenity, both felonies, and six counts of public indecency, all misdemeanors. The case is assigned to Judge Chris Cook's courtroom, where a pretrial hearing is scheduled June 1. A registered Tier II sex offender, Moore isn't allowed to have unsupervised contact with minors, according to his listing on a state sex offender registry. The Amherst Public Library is "a long way for someone from Youngstown to be," Assistant Lorain County Prosecutor Paul Griffin noted in court during a bond hearing Monday. The incidents were Feb. 5 and Feb. 9, Amherst police and the Prosecutor's Office said. On Feb. 9, Moore was at the Amherst Public Library on Spring Street where security cameras caught him watching a woman doing homework before he got up and started following a 17-year-old female employee. Chief Assistant Prosecutor Chris Pierre said Moore "began watching a video of a man masturbating" and showed it to the employee. Moore also touched himself in a sexual manner as he did, according to an Amherst police report. Police also found footage of Moore at the library on Feb. 5. In that incident, he followed a woman through the stacks, grabbed his crotch, dropped his pants, exposed his genitals and touched himself sexually, according to the Prosecutor's Office. Using license plate-reading cameras, Amherst police found and stopped Moore's silver 2018 Kia Soul on Feb. 16 and took him into custody. He denied being at the library, Pierre said. Lorain County prosecutors said Moore recently was kicked out of a sober living facility in Akron after he masturbated and exposed himself to children in front of a picture window. He was charged in that case, defense attorney Denise Wilms said in court, where she was filling in for Moore's court-appointed attorney. Moore's explanation? He had just gotten out of the shower, he told Cook. Mahoning County Common Pleas Court records show Moore has two open public indecency charges there, including one felony and one misdemeanor filed in December 2024. He pleaded not guilty, then failed to appear for a pretrial hearing in October and a warrant was issued for his arrest, according to court records. WKBN-TV in Youngstown reported that those charges came from a 2024 incident in which Moore exposed his genitals and touched himself in a sexual manner while looking at a child in a parked car outside a McDonald's near the campus of Youngstown State University. The child's mother confronted Moore, who then ran away, WKBN reported. That same day, two women at YSU told campus police that Moore was watching them while "touching himself inappropriately" but that he ran off when he saw one of the women on her phone, WKBN reported. Moore was convicted in 2020 of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, a felony, with the victim being a 13-year-old girl. He also has convictions for failure to register as a sex offender in Mahoning County and public indecency in Trumbull County, WKBN reported. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.