GLOUCESTER, Massachusetts from www.salemnews.com – — A Fort Square resident who police say has been canvassing the North Shore for women and girls willing to enter his pornographic video “contest” is behind bars on charges of harassment and soliciting children to pose nude or in sexual conduct.

Evans “Roddy” Dick III, 57, of 42 Fort Square, Gloucester, was wanted by both Gloucester and Beverly police investigating a series of packages distributed to women containing sexual images when he was arrested in Salem on Wednesday after allegedly skipping out on the check from a meal at a Thai restaurant.

In addition to graphic DVDs, the packages included letters signed by Dick asking the recipients to make their own videos and send them to him in exchange for prize money.

Arraigned yesterday in Gloucester District Court, Dick faces a charge of posing or exhibiting a child in a state of nudity or sexual conduct, disturbing the peace, possession of marijuana, two counts of making annoying phone calls, and four counts of criminal harassment.

He is being held without bail pending the results of a dangerousness hearing scheduled for June 26.

According to police, the Gloucester investigation began when the mother of a 16-year-old Gloucester High School student told police in late May that her family had received up to 20 obscene phone calls directed toward their daughter from an unknown man.

A second mother of a local teenager told police she had received similar calls, and the phone number she reported from caller identification was traced by detectives to Dick.

In the calls, Dick — referring to himself by name — made repeated sexual references to the teens while pornography could be heard playing loudly on a television set in the background, police said.

After Dick initially denied making the calls, police visiting his house found the numbers of both families on the call history of his mobile phone, as well as a bag of marijuana, according to the police report.

The day after the first report of harassing phone calls, the mother of the 16-year-old delivered to police a package dropped off at her home containing a pornographic video, a check for $100 and a 10-page handwritten letter addressed to her daughter asking for 12 homemade videos capturing sexual acts.

The letter said the contest had a “strong emphasis on sexually active children” and, in exchange for submitting videos of themselves, “contestants can win cash, sometimes a lot of it,” with prizes ranging from “$1,000 to $1 million.”

The packet also contained a handwritten “consent” waiver form and around $3 in loose change.

Soon after police began investigating the incidents in Gloucester, similar packets began turning up in other North Shore communities.

In Beverly, a 21-year-old woman told police Dick had handed her a packet containing an explicit DVD and a letter asking her to submit a homemade video. Beverly police took out a warrant for Dick’s arrest.

According to the Gloucester police report, Dick on May 24 made between 15 and 20 obscene phone calls to the home of a 16-year-old girl, six calls to a family with more than one teenage daughter, and four explicit calls directed at a teenage boy. During the first week of June, after having already been questioned by police, Dick made five calls to a 19-year-old Gloucester woman, according to the police report.

Police seized several similar packages containing letters and DVDs from Dick’s apartment, and witnesses said they observed him mailing around 20 more packages.

Dick told investigators he had been drinking heavily recently, stopped taking medication and identified the people he called and sent packages to after seeing their pictures in various newspapers, according to the police report.

The police report does not contain any reference to Dick having any success getting anyone to make pornography for him.

Gloucester police detectives declined to discuss the case, but a spokeswoman for Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said the posing-of-a-child charge was brought because of Dick’s attempts to solicit sexual images.

A conviction for posing or exhibiting a child in a state of nudity or sexual conduct can carry between 10 and 20 years in jail.

An earlier story:

BEVERLY — A Gloucester man is facing charges in at least two communities after he allegedly handed out packets containing sexually explicit materials and invitations to participate in a “contest.”

Evans R. Dick III, 57, was wanted on a warrant obtained by Beverly police earlier this month after a 21-year-old woman went to them with the materials she had been handed on Cabot Street.

The packet included a sexually explicit DVD and a handwritten note explaining that he was seeking contestants to submit their own sexually explicit videos, Beverly police Lt. William Terry said. The packet also included a waiver created by Dick.

Dick was arrested on Wednesday evening at the Bangkok Paradise restaurant in downtown Salem, where employees had called police after Dick skipped out on a $75 bill.

He was still outside, sitting in his running car, when the employees pointed him out to officers, prosecutor Honor Segal said. Dick claimed he had left $1,000 in “crisp $10 bills” in a folder, along with his coat, inside the restaurant. Police found no such folder.

When police asked him for identification, he said he didn’t have his license on him, as he attempted to hide something that looked like a license. Segal said the police quickly learned that Dick was wanted on the Beverly warrant.

Because of a procedural issue regarding the charges, Dick was not arraigned on the Beverly case yesterday, but Salem District Court Judge Robert Cornetta ordered him held on a warrant obtained yesterday by Gloucester police, who have filed charges stemming from the production of the images he allegedly handed out in Beverly.

More details about those images were unavailable yesterday.

Dick is scheduled to be arraigned this morning in Gloucester District Court. He will be brought back to Salem District Court sometime next month.

Told he was being held at Middleton Jail overnight, Dick began moaning and saying, “Oh, no.”

At several points before and during his court appearance, he appeared to be short of breath, pulling out an asthma inhaler, and wincing in pain.