{"id":89297,"date":"2025-08-22T18:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T18:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/89297\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T18:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T18:14:09","slug":"man-arrested-after-12-year-old-girl-hit-with-a-sex-toy-at-wnba-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/89297\/","title":{"rendered":"Man arrested after 12-year-old girl hit with a sex toy at WNBA game"},"content":{"rendered":"

The man who allegedly threw a sex toy toward the court during a New York Liberty game, striking a 12-year-old girl, has been arrested, police said. <\/p>\n

New York police arrested Charles Burgess, 32, of Dayton, Ohio, on Wednesday. Burgess was charged with two counts of assault in connection with the incident. <\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear whether Burgess has been booked into jail or if he has legal representation. <\/p>\n

The NYPD had been searching for the culprit since Aug. 5, when someone threw a sex toy onto the court<\/a> of the New York Liberty-Dallas Wings game at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, hitting a girl in the leg. <\/p>\n

Police said the suspect fled the scene on foot and remained on the lam until Wednesday. <\/p>\n

This incident is one of many similar occurrences at WNBA games this summer, including other recent examples in Phoenix<\/a>, Chicago <\/a>and Los Angeles<\/a>. Two men have been arrested in connection with incidents in Georgia<\/a> and Phoenix. <\/p>\n

\"BarclaysBarclays Center in Brooklyn.Getty Images<\/p>\n

A cryptocurrency group has claimed responsibility for some of the incidents<\/a>, saying they were designed to promote a so-called memecoin, a digital token whose value changes according to online interest. <\/p>\n

In a Friday statement to NBC News, an individual associated with the group called the latest charges “ridiculous” and accused the police of exaggerating the severity of the incident.<\/p>\n

“The NYPD labeled a dildo as a dangerous weapon,” said the individual, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. “If they are trying to make a statement we will be working with some of the top lawyers in the country to ensure that our people are treated fairly.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Rebecca Cohen<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

Rebecca Cohen is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Rob Wile<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

Rob Wile is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist covering breaking business stories for NBCNews.com.<\/p>\n

David K. Li and Emma Butts contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The man who allegedly threw a sex toy toward the court during a New York Liberty game, striking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-89297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}