Girls basketball coach speaks out after lawyer allegedly flashes team
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Prosecutors charged an Indianapolis lawyer with public indecency and public nudity after police said he exposed himself to two school buses full of high school girls.
Court documents say Raymond Fairchild practiced law in an old Indianapolis Fire Department station that’s now an office space. Other people working in the building Friday said they had “no comment” on Fairchild.
Norwall High School basketball coach Eric Thornton said he was driving the team’s minibus to a tournament in Plainfield on June 15. Prosecutors say Fairchild pulled up next to the bus on Interstate 70.
“He was smiling and just acting very strange,” Thornton said.
Prosecutors said Fairchild then exposed himself to the girls and pulled off the interstate before anyone could see his license plate.
Another Norwall coach posted pictures of the man to Facebook that some of the girls had taken, in hopes of identifying the man.
“That ended up being the main reason why we were able to find out who this guy was,” Thornton said.
A Union City girls basketball coach said the same man in the pictures flashed their team on I-70 in February. The girls told police he also masturbated before driving away.
“That’s a very difficult situation for innocent, naive girls to go through,” Thornton said.
Detectives said a husband and wife came forward and identified the man in the pictures as Raymond Fairchild, according to court documents.
The couple said they’d known Fairchild for years, and one of them went to law school with him.
Fairchild now faces four counts of public indecency and two counts of public nudity — all misdemeanors.
“I will hope that he would serve some sort of penalty in prison.” Thornton said. “As their basketball coach, I couldn’t be more proud of the way they handled this with courage.”
The Union City coach said he later realized he’d seen Fairchild before the I-70 incident on that same day. He said he saw Fairchild standing near the old IFD station, smiling at the girls’ bus as it drove by.
Detectives said they tracked down two Honda CRVs registered to Fairchild’s wife, according to court documents. Investigators said the suspect was driving a CRV in both incidents.
