BETHLEHEM — Dean M. Shultis, 65, was arrested on Wednesday, July 26, for public lewdness because he was masturbating in a doctor’s waiting room, according to Bethlehem Police Commander Adam Hornick.

Police responded immediately, at 9 a.m., to calls from employees and patients at 1220 New Scotland Rd., Hornick said. The patients and employees, whom he described as “very concerned,” were interviewed as was Shultis, and video evidence was reviewed, Hornick said. Shultis was charged with one misdemeanor count of public lewdness.

Shultis could not be reached for comment.

While Hornick said he could not reveal whether Shultis did or did not have a criminal record, he said, “We publicize incidents like this to try to see if other similar incidents occurred that were not reported. Or someone could have seen him in the act but not known who it was.”

Hornick concluded, “In my experience, it is rare that someone of that age would be doing this for the first time,” although he added, “We can’t cast aspersions because we don’t know.”

Shultis was scheduled to appear in Bethlehem Town Court on Tuesday, Aug. 1, at 4 p.m.

Bethlehem Police are requesting that anyone who has information in regards to this or other incidents with Shultis to call (518) 439-9973.

Clinical psychologist James M. Cantor, Ph.D., an expert in sexual offenses, told The Enterprise earlier that, while researchers don’t know with certainty what motivates exhibitionists, Karl Freund had developed the current framework most often used to understand them: Exhibitionism, such as masturbating in public, is one type of “courtship disorder.”

Human males, according to Freund’s theory, have a natural courtship cycle — visually identifying potential reproductive partners, signaling interest, physical preparatory contact and fondling, and then sexual intercourse.

Problems in the identification phase, Freund said, give rise to voyeurism; problems in the signaling phase lead to exhibitionism; and problems in the preparatory contact phase lead to rubbing one’s hands (toucherism) or pelvis (frottuerism) against an unconsenting partner for sexual gratification.