‘He had a cigar in his mouth:’ Woman accuses pirate of groping her at Gasparilla parade

For Rina Alvarez, the Gasparilla Pirate Festival probably won’t ever be the same.

The Tampa Bay woman grew up attending the annual party named after mythical pirate José Gaspar, who terrorized the Gulf Coast of Florida in the late 1700s, early 1800s. The raucous, fun community event turned traumatic for her this year.

Alvarez told News Channel 8 that in the middle of catching traditional beads, a man dressed as a pirate came up to her and pulled her shirt down.

“He had a cigar in his mouth the whole time,” she said. “I screamed for him to stop. I was just in shock.”

A friend behind her reportedly snapped a photo of the pirate pulling at the victim’s top. The station would not publish it as the man has not been charged with a crime.

“No one is prepared for that. I was completely blindsided,” Alvarez said. “I didn’t ask for it. Out of the hundreds of pirates that went by, not a one of them put their hands on me in an inappropriate way. They didn’t try to pull my outfit down. They didn’t grab me, nothing,” said Alvarez.

The Miami Herald reached out to the Tampa Police Department, which confirmed that a woman filed an incident report, which was not released to media.

The police statement, in part, said, that an ”unidentified man used his hand to pull the victim’s blouse down, exposing her right breast, and that he then used an ink stamp to mark the breast.”

Tampa Police will not release the name of the victim, but said an investigation is under way.

If the man is found to have groped Alvarez, he most likely will be charged with a misdemeanor, said a TPD spokesman.

This story was originally published January 30, 2019 at 4:26 PM.