Security officer accused of rape faced similar allegation in past

ST. CHARLES, Mo. -- A former H&M security officer charged with illegally detaining two women who were shopping at a suburban St. Louis mall in the past two months and sexually assaulting one of them was accused of trying that with a woman at another area mall last summer.

Shaun Ivy, 36, was accused in August of having an 18-year-old woman drive to a remote spot at the West County Center in Des Peres, Missouri, and offering not to have her jailed for shoplifting in exchange for sex.

Police investigated the incident, but prosecutor Tim Engelmeyer didn't press charges, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Engelmeyer said Wednesday he didn't file charges because Ivy denied the woman's claims, and there was not enough video evidence to fully support either person's claims.

Ivy is charged with kidnapping a woman April 15 at Chesterfield Mall in Chesterfield, Missouri, on suspicion of shoplifting.

He also has been charged with kidnapping and raping a woman from the same mall under similar circumstances March 2.

Last week, Des Peres police called the 18-year-old woman involved in the alleged August incident to tell her they had reopened her case.

The call to the woman, who does not want her name used because of the nature of the incident, was one day after the two accusations against Ivy emerged.

The teen and her mother are disturbed and frustrated, saying had police or H&M stopped Ivy, others would not have been victimized.

"Nobody would have had to get raped if they handled it last year," the teenager's mother told the newspaper.

The prosecutor in charge of the cases against Ivy, Tim Lohmar, didn't reply to phone messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Calls to Ivy's lawyer, Eric Boehmer, went to an automated recording that wouldn't take messages.

H&M said Ivy is no longer an employee.