Library Exhibitionist Trial Delayed Until August

The man accused of masturbating at the Rancho Santa Margarita Public Library last year will get another month before going to trial.

At the request of attorneys for Robert Bruce Engel, a registered sex offender from Mission Viejo, the trial scheduled to have begun on Monday has been delayed  until August 20 in Orange County Superior Court.

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It has been 14 months since Engel was arrested in the library on May 16, 2011, exactly one week after teenage girls reported seeing him pleasure himself in the library with a newspaper draped over his lap. At the time he was arrested, Engel was again in the libary and reading the newspaper.

Engel has pleaded not guilty to one count of felony indecent exposure with prior convictions for indecent exposure in 1999 and 2002. He faces a maximum of three years in state prison if convicted. He is free on $20,000 bail.