Florida police seek help in case of rapist from Long Island
Cameron L. McDermott, 32, of Hempstead. Credit: NCPD
Police are seeking the public’s help in their investigation into whether a Hempstead man who recently pleaded guilty to raping two women in New York City is connected to possible sex crimes in Florida, officials said Thursday.
The Martin County Sheriff’s Office in Florida has issued appeals through social media and local news outlets asking women to come forward who may have dated Cameron L. McDermott, 32, while he was there in June 2017. They note that McDermott admitted to drugging the two women in New York before raping them, and say it is possible women who had a relationship with him in Florida may be unaware they were sex crime victims.
“If you have been on a date with this man, if you know of him doing something, we want to know,” Martin County sheriff spokeswoman Christine Christofek-Weiss said. “We are concerned.”
McDermott remains behind bars having pleaded guilty to first-degree rape and first-degree sexual abuse on Feb. 9. One woman he attacked on eight occasions in 2010, and the other he attacked five times in 2013, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. The two women were unaware they had been raped until detectives contacted them, prosecutors said.
McDermott’s rapes in New York came to light while he was being investigated for allegedly exposing himself to women in Garden City over a four-month period. He was arrested in that case in January 2017, and the case is still pending.
During that investigation, authorities said they found videos that he had made of the rapes on his computer, police said.
Garden City police also found a file on McDermott’s computer labeled “Florida” that contained videos of McDermott luring women and children to his car to ask for directions. In the videos, McDermott has exposed himself and is masturbating as the victims approach the vehicle.
The Martin County Sheriff’s Office had an encounter with McDermott in early June of last year. A woman made a report of a man in a car exposing himself to her, and she included his license plate number.
Shortly thereafter, sheriff’s deputies found the silver Hyundai with McDermott behind the wheel. He said the exposure was accidental, and deputies let him go, Christofek-Weiss said.
After additional investigation, they issued an arrest warrant for McDermott on the charge of exposure, a misdemeanor, she said.
By then McDermott was back in New York, where days later, he was arrested in June for the rapes of the women in New York City.
Craig Schneider is a Long Island native and Stony Brook University alumnus. He joined Newsday as a general assignment reporter in January 2018 after 20 years at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
