California man caught 'sniffing' women at Barnes & Noble free despite rap sheet of child peeping, 40 arrests

Michael Ruiz
Wed, August 16, 2023 at 12:31 PM EDT

A serial creep from Los Angeles County is back on the streets after dozens of arrests for a slew of sex offenses and other crimes stretching back to 2005, despite being caught on video accosting women just days ago.
Cope Fear, 37, was identified as the man seen on viral TikTok videos who appears to follow women around a Burbank Barnes & Noble bookstore "sniffing" their backsides. Glendale police arrested him for allegedly peeping on a Glendale home with children inside last week, according to authorities.

Cope Fear has felony convictions of robbery and burglary, law enforcement sources told Fox News Digital, and despite having been ordered to register as a sex offender, his name did not appear on the state's registry when checked Wednesday morning.

Cope Fear was accused of peeping into a Glendale home with children on Aug. 6, and a Barnes & Noble shopper posted her encounter with him to TikTok on Aug. 8. He was arrested on Friday and walked free on Tuesday after a California judge placed him on probation.

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Cope Fear previously served time in state prison on burglary and robbery charges and had been sentenced in February to a year in jail for indecent exposure in Santa Clarita, court records show. However, Cope Fear was released early anyway, law enforcement sources told Fox News Digital.

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After Cope Fear's rapid release, a victim named Michaela Witter posted a TikTok video warning neighbors to "please be careful."

"Is this real?" she said. "I think he maybe spent three days in jail…They can't do anything until he's done something really bad to someone, and I'm honestly scared that that person is gonna be me."
he added that she was at a loss for words.

"If you're in the area, please, please be careful," she said.

Witter caught her bookstore encounter with Cope on video and shared it to TikTok last week. Then, at least 20 other women reached out to her with similar stories, she said.

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"What are you doing?" she asked after Cope crouched down behind her and leaned his face toward her.

"Tying my shoe," Coper replied, huffing and short of breath. "What are you doing?"

In her single trip to the store, she also recorded the same man pulling the same move on another woman.

She reported him to the front desk and shared the video online, where millions of Miscers saw it, some of whom said they recognized him.