Man arrested for groping, assaulting teen actors at haunted house

The five victims are each members of the Tarpon Springs High School drama club and were working for tips at the haunted houses, according to an organizer.

James Carter, 50, went into the haunted houses Friday at about 10 PM and molested the teenage girls, according to Tarpon Springs Police Department reports. One victim, 15, was lying on a table when Carter kissed her and inserted his tongue in her mouth. He then allegedly “touched the victim’s genital area through the clothing she was wearing.”

Carter, who had arrived at the haunted houses with a small group but became separated from them, also allegedly asked a 16-year-old girl, “I’m not supposed to touch you, right?” He then put his hand on the girl’s shoulder and “touched her breast through her clothing. He then tried to press his face against the victim’s,” police reported.

A third girl, 16, was outside one haunted house “wearing a costume that had an opening along the side.” Carter, cops allege, “reached inside of the opening and touched the victim’s breast and genital through the clothing.”

Carter, pictured in the above Pinellas County Sheriff's Office mug shot, has also been charged with grabbing a 15-year-old boy’s head and shaking it for “approx five to seven seconds,” and striking another boy, 14, in the stomach.