FAIRFAX, Va. (7News) — 7News was the first to report that registered child sex offender Richard Cox, 58, allegedly exposed himself in women’s locker rooms at two schools and three recreation centers in Arlington and Fairfax counties, according to police.

7News has now learned that months before those incidents, Cox allegedly exposed himself in a Planet Fitness women’s restroom, but the indecent exposure charge was dismissed.

7News Reporter Nick Minock asked Fairfax County’s top prosecutor, Steve Descano, why he chose not to prosecute the case and we spoke to a woman who canceled her gym membership because Cox was allowed to use the women’s locker room.

RELATED | Child sex offender visited 2 schools, 2 rec centers in Arlington and Fairfax counties

“I would just leave the gym when I was pregnant because I was so uncomfortable around him,” Lyndsey, a Fairfax County resident, told Minock.

Lyndsey is a mother of two young girls, and she said she canceled her gym membership last year when she learned Cox was using the women’s locker room at Planet Fitness on Lee Highway in Fairfax County which is right next to a Jolly Yolly indoor playground for kids.

ALSO READ | Sex offender who identifies as transgender exposes himself to kids again at Va. school

“I canceled it, and then never went back after that,” said Lyndsey.

But before she canceled her membership, she said she and other women tried making it work.

“And so we actually walked out of the gym and used the restroom at Aldi together, because we felt so uncomfortable that we couldn’t even use our own gym locker room,” said Lyndsey.

Planet Fitness’ policy states, “All members, including transgender members, may use Planet Fitness locker room facilities, bathrooms, showers, and all other facilities/programs separated by sex based on their self-reported gender identity.”

According to court documents, Cox identifies as transgender. Cox is also a registered sex offender who has a lengthy criminal record.

In June 2024, a different woman said she saw Cox naked in the women’s restroom in a Falls Church Planet Fitness. And she filed a criminal complaint.

“I went to Planet Fitness in Falls Church on June 6, and around 4:30 p.m., I went to the restroom,” the woman wrote in the criminal complaint against Cox on June 10, 2024. “I used the stall. Once I was finished, I went to wash my hands, and as soon as I was finished [with] my hands, I tried to walk out. I was startled by a man naked right in front of me in the restroom. I panicked and ran out to see if I’m in the right restroom. I looked at the sign outside the restroom and it was the female restroom.”

In court documents, Cox admitted to using the women’s locker rooms at the two Planet Fitness locations in criminal complaints that he filed against Planet Fitness employees.

“I signed up for a gym membership at Planet Fitness at 11001 Lee Highway in Fairfax, Virginia,” Cox wrote in a criminal complaint on July 8, 2024. “I had called ahead and identified myself as [a] transgender female, and they copied my driver’s license, which shows my gender as female. A week later, it was reported that I had used the female locker room at a different Planet Fitness, and Joey Doe, the regional manager at Fairfax, canceled my membership, so the entire membership he had anticipated me using the men’s locker room, and should be charged with attempting to aid and abet indecent exposure, because he provides the place, the place for male nudity, and fully expected me, a transgender female, to use that room.”

“On or about June 3, 2024, I visited the Planet Fitness at Seven Corners for a Free Trial,” Cox wrote in another criminal complaint on July 8, 2024. “I am a transgender female but do not cause a scene. I went into the men’s locker room to go to the bathroom. When I passed through the room, I was exposed to by a naked man. The next time I visited the gym, I used the women’s locker room instead for a shower, and someone claimed that I exposed myself and charged me for indecent exposure. If that is true, then the man is guilty of indecent exposure toward me, and the manager of the gym, Eric Doe, is guilty of aiding and abetting this crime by providing the place where he knows that this behavior occurs.”

According to court records, the indecent exposure charge against Cox was dismissed last summer.

7News asked Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano why his office chose not to prosecute this case.

On Friday, a spokesperson for Descano said in an email to 7News, “Prosecutors are not involved in pro se misdemeanor cases in Fairfax, and prosecutors were not involved in this particular case.”

7News then asked Descano’s office in an email, “If a misdemeanor sexual battery or DUI defendant was unrepresented, a Fairfax County prosecutor wouldn’t be involved?”

7News also asked Descano’s office in an email, “Many jurisdictions prosecute indecent exposure whether the accused is represented by an attorney or not, so why doesn’t Steve Descano? Why is Descano giving people a free pass? Why did Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano’s office prosecute Cox for failing to register as a sex offender, but not for indecent exposure?”

Descano’s office has not answered those questions yet.

A pro se case is when the defendant is not represented by an attorney.

MORE | AFL calls on Trump Administration to investigate Virginia schools’ bathroom policies

“I can’t believe this nonsense,” said Lyndsey. “I would like to see our prosecutors do their job, which is prosecute crimes. That’s it. Do your job. Prosecute crimes. That’s all moms want you to do.”

It is unusual for prosecutors to not prosecute indecent exposure charges solely because the defendant is unrepresented by an attorney, Fairfax County attorney Ed Nuttall said.

“In my 29 years of practice, I haven’t come across a case where a prosecutor in any jurisdiction refuses to prosecute an indecent exposure case because the accused is unrepresented by counsel or not represented by counsel,” said Nuttall.

Had Descano prosecuted Cox last summer and if he had secured a guilty verdict and a sentence, Cox would not have been able to allegedly expose himself in women’s locker rooms in Arlington’s Washington Liberty High School, Wakefield High School, and Barcroft Sports and Fitness Center months later. Nor would he have been able to enter Fairfax County’s Oakmont Rec Center’s women’s locker room in November.

“Gymnasiums have been places of social nudity dating back as far as the ancient Romans and Greeks,” Cox wrote on July 15, 2024, in a motion to dismiss the indecent exposure charge related to him allegedly exposing himself in a Planet Fitness women’s locker room. “In fact, nudity among the ancients was not always segregated by gender either. It was not uncommon for a male to be naked around women or a female to be naked around men. But unless the event was something like an orgy, it was considered nothing but platonic to have this social nudity.”

Cox’s motion to dismiss the charge in Fairfax County continues:

“At least in gymnasiums, this practice has continued to this day. And while Americans, at least into the twentieth century, have segregated our locker rooms by gender, in the twenty-first century America and the States have welcomed the presence of people known as transgender (such as myself) into society, and its locker rooms.

Transgender people identify as belonging to a gender which may not conform to the sex they were assigned at birth. For a transgender person to be observed in a locker room nude is no proof that this also was anything more than platonic.

The offense of indecent exposure is even more of a burden to prove. For an action to be indecent exposure, the Complainant / Prosecution would have to prove not only that it was something more than platonic, but also that it was indecent.

Nudity alone is not indecent, or we could not have public locker rooms at all. And the question of whether it is indecent for a transgender person to be nude in the locker room that they identify with has also been answered by our courts, our legislatures, and public opinion, and the answer is, No. So whatever it is that my accuser calls “indecent,” other than the anti-trans discrimination that she harbors in her own mind, it has not been and cannot be proven to the court.

Nothing on the record suggests this case would even pass the evidentiary requirements of discovery.

Why is the Magistrate spending taxpayer dollars writing a summons for this, or why is the Commonwealth’s Attorney, prosecuting it, when the laws of the United States, of the Commonwealth of Virginia and Fairfax County are on my side? What I did was not illegal and I should not be harassed by this.”

READ THIS | Residents call for change after sex offender caught in Arlington County, Va. locker room

The Virginia Department of Corrections told 7News that Cox has served several prison sentences from:

• September 1988 – May 1989
• April 1993 – January 2001
• March 2022 – July 2004
• August 2007 – July 2014
• April 2016 – January 2018

You can read more about Cox’s criminal history and his recent alleged crimes in Arlington here.

On Thursday, 7News emailed the following questions to Planet Fitness, but Planet Fitness did not respond:

Does Planet Fitness do ID checks against sex offender registries before allowing people to access Planet Fitness facilities?

Why did Planet Fitness locations, including the one at 1101 Lee Highway in Fairfax, Va., allow Cox to use the women’s locker room/bathroom?

A woman told us she canceled her Planet Fitness membership because Planet Fitness allowed Cox to use the women’s locker room at that location. What is Planet Fitness’s response?

Is Planet Fitness going to be changing any of its policies to protect women from this type of behavior?