Darren Merager – a 53-year-old convicted sex criminal who identifies as a woman – had previously rebuffed the allegations, claiming to be a victim of transphobia
A transgender person wanted for exposing their naked, half-erect penis to women in two separate changing room incidents in Los Angeles has spoken out about the incident before their arrest earlier this month having been on the run since September 2021.
The suspect, 53-year-old Darren Agee Merager, had been charged with five felony counts of indecent exposure for the incidents – including an infamous altercation at Wi Spa, where Merager exposed herself to several women, including an underage girl.
Merager – a convicted sex criminal who identifies as a woman – had previously rebuffed the allegations, claiming to be a victim of transphobia.
The incident spawned month protests – many of them violent – all while Merager’s previous sex crimes continued to come to light. Eventually, Merager was unmasked as a registered sex offender, convicted for similar incidents in 2002 and 2003.
Speaking to LA Mag before their arrest earlier in December, Merager said he was surprised by the extent of the protests that took place.
‘I was completely caught off guard by that. I live my own personal private life. I try to stay aware of the community, but I’m very much a person that doesn’t belong to any type of organization. Even put me under a transgender umbrella, and I’m very uncomfortable. But when they had that second protest, I wanted to really understand why people were protesting. I actually went down there just to witness it.’
Merager also said that being on the run has also affected people associated with him.
‘Being on the lam doesn’t only affect me. Back when this thing first started, I sold my car to my doctor, and then the police followed this car, dragged my doctor’s elderly father from behind the wheel, with the helicopters and news cameras on him, and held him there handcuffed for hours. He’s clearly an elderly Korean man. I’m a white guy with long, blond hair! So people close to me have also been affected.’
During a look into Merager’s background, a warrant was also unearthed for the sex pest’s arrest for a separate locker room incident in December 2018 together with a laundry list of offenses stretching nearly two decades, including burglary and trespass.
The incident sparked months of sometimes violent protests, where members of the radical leftist group Antifa showed up – masked and in riot gear – to violently defend the suspect’s claims.
The story was then, for months, swept under the rug by the mainstream media – with many, including the leftist radical group Antifa, defending Merager.
Back in June, a group of women complained that Merager used his status as a transgender woman to expose her particularly erect penis at the Wi Spa in Los Angeles to them—with at least one of them being an underage girl
The suspect had been charged with five felony counts of indecent exposure for the incidents – including an infamous altercation at Wi Spa, where she exposed herself to several women, including an underage girl. She was also wanted for indecent exposure in a separate incident in 2018 that transpired at a changing area at a swimming pool in West Hollywood Park
Earlier this month, more than year after going on the lam in September 2021 – three months after the Wi Spa incident – Merager was booked by LA police for the spa and pool incidents, with a bail set at $350,000.
A biological male, Merager – who said he would fight his case in court before suddenly going on the run in September 2021 – faces 11 charges in total for the pair of incidents, where she allegedly used her status as a transgender woman to access women’s changing areas and show his partially erect penis to those inside.
Jeremy Lee Quinn, pictured, of LA Mag got to speak with Merager over the course of several months prior to his arrest
When asked by LA Mag why he decided to flee, Meager said he could not have afforded the bail.
‘I couldn’t bail out. They were going to put my bail to the point where it’s just through the roof. I mean, it could be close to a million dollars. There’s no way I’d ever be able to get out. That’s not turning yourself in. I said, “I’m not going to just be kidnapped. Enough is enough.”‘
Merager’s apparent ruse first made headlines in June, when a female patron at Wi Spa posted a video to social media that showed her complaining to staff a man had exposed his penis to her and others – including a young girl – in the women’s section.
‘It’s okay for a man to go into the women’s section, show his penis around the other women, young little girls — underage — in your spa?’ the frustrated woman, who is reportedly being treated as one of the victims in the case, can be heard asking staff in the clip.
‘He’s a man! He is a man!’ The three-and-a-half-minute video was promptly reposted across social media and soon went viral – forcing Wi Spa to address the incident, with staffers saying they stood behind Merager and her alleged gender identity.
When asked why Merager simply didn’t use a stall in order to avoid such confrontations, they appeared defiant.
‘It’s not for me to adapt to society at this point. Even if it’s the polite thing to do or you want me to or there’s a controversy or whatever, if nobody else is using a shower curtain or nobody else is using a swimsuit, it’s illegal to try and make me do it. Technically, and from all perspectives, I am female, and everybody agrees with that. We’re all on equal grounds under the law.’
Amid this unrest generated by the protests, several media outlets labeled the outcry as merely bias against transgender people, with some going as far to report the incident – which transpired on June 23, 2021 – flat-out didn’t happen. Slate, for instance, labeled the story a ‘transphobic hoax.’
However, as attention around the incident swirled, LA police became aware of the controversy, and thus, Merager. They soon discerned that she was wanted for another indecent exposure incident – also involving women and children – at women’s changing area at a swimming pool in West Hollywood Park.
The alleged altercation, according to police, was eerily similar to the occurrence at the spa, and saw Merager labeled a fugitive from the law after she failed to address the indecent exposure charges leveled against her after the incident – of which there were six.
Speaking to LAMag, Merager appeared to brush aside any issues of indecent exposure.
‘One step away from Santa Monica Boulevard, where there are rainbows and guys sitting in windows with rubber balls sticking in their mouths. You bring your kids over here, and you’re afraid they’re seeing a transgender person?’ he questioned.
Last Tuesday, more than year after going on the lam in September 2021 – three months after the Wi Spa incident – Merager was booked by LA police for the spa and pool incidents, with a bail set at $350,000. She remained incarcerated Monday
A biological male, Merager – pictured here in 2020 – faces 11 charges in total for the pair of incidents, where she allegedly used her status as a transgender woman to access women’s changing areas and show his partially erect penis to those inside
An internal flyer sent out by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department at the time read: ‘Merager claims to identify as female so he can access women’s locker rooms and showers.’
It further noted her status as a ‘registered sex offender,’ while specifying the make of Merager’s car as well as her 2018 booking photo.
As protests and general unrest surrounding the Wi Spa incident continued, police quietly filed five more charges against the already wanted Merager, following a three-month investigation into the claims by the Los Angeles Police Department.
Shortly thereafter – despite telling the New York Post in an interview that she was aware of the warrant for her arrest and had been in contact with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office with plans to turn herself in – Merager disappeared, only to be found and booked by LA police earlier this month.
It was not immediately clear where Merager was apprehended, though it was somewhere in the Golden State, arrest records show.
The arrest likely offers some semblance of validation for those who questioned Merager’s claims and the blind support she subsequently received, as her story spawned national attention and divided a city and even the nation as a whole.
Protesters and Police at the Wi Spa Protest at Wi Spa, Los Angeles, California in July 2021
The incident led to months of protests—some of them violent—as progressives clashed on their interpretations of the strange alleged occurrence
The story was then, for months, swept under the rug by the mainstream media, with many, including the leftist radical group Antifa, taking to the streets to attack protesters questioning Merager
Merager’s first court appearance is slated for December 30, where she will address the 11 indecent exposure charges leveled against her.
Neighbors, associates and court records for Merager, who was born a male, paint a picture of a troubled and lawless transient, who avoids their parents’ conservative Riverside neighborhood and has a history of exposing themselves in women’s locker rooms.
Their extensive criminal history includes three burglaries, two convictions for indecent exposure in 2002 and 2003, a third exposure case that Merager is still contesting, failure to register as a sex offender, unlawful carrying of a switchblade, three trespassing convictions, two guilty verdicts of loitering with intent to commit a crime, resisting arrest, reckless driving, driving without a license, unlawful taking of another’s vehicle without permission, and giving false identification to a police officer.
Already a registered sex offender, Merager is facing felony charges for indecent exposure in a locker room at Wi Spa in LA and another incident at a Hollywood pool changing room in 2018 – both allegedly involving minors
Merager, whose last known address is listed as her parents’ home (pictured), was already a registered sex offender – with a track record extending back two decades – when the Wi Spa and pool incidents occurred
Merager was convicted of two burglaries in 2011 and 2012.
In one of the cases they were prosecuted alongside multiple alleged accomplices.
In 2000, Merager was convicted of trespassing as well as loitering with intent in two separate cases. They were convicted of trespassing again in 2001.
In 2002 and 2003 they were convicted of indecent exposure, then for failing to register as a sex offender in 2006.
Merager did not appear in a search of the Megan’s Law database, a list of registered sex offenders in California, or in the similar national federal database.
Merager began 2007 with a conviction for resisting arrest, then was convicted that year for providing a false ID to a police officer.
But serial criminal claimed in a recent civil court case that they have been physically attacked for their lifestyle and behavior. In a civil complaint filed in a Los Angeles court in April this year, Merager alleged they were parked on a public street outside a home in Malibu when the homeowner shoved them down a steep bank.
Merager claimed Mark Falvai ‘demanded to know why Plaintiff had parked a car in front of the Premises’ then ‘approached Plaintiff and completely unprovoked used two hands to push Plaintiff in Plaintiff’s chest.’
‘Defendant Falvai’s use of physical force caused Plaintiff to tumble down a steep embankment between the roadway and the Premises causing physical injury to Plaintiff,’ the court complaint said.
‘Plaintiff was able to climb the embankment and escape to safety inside his locked car.’
The court papers claimed Merager called police who arrested Falvai. The case settled out of court in August last year.
The blonde, blue-eyed Merager, who stands at 6’2′ and weighs 200lbs according to LAPD records, had bounced around Los Angeles county for years before making headlines with the Wi Spa incident, frequenting locales such Marina Del Rey, Malibu and Pasadena.
Residency records show her most recent address in April last year in Sun City, Riverside, the home of her 77-year-old mother, Brenda.
Brenda and her partner declined to comment when approached by DailyMail.com, but residents of their middle class neighborhood said they had not ever seen Merager at the home – located in a predominantly conservative enclave in the otherwise progressive region.