Tourist Gave Rum to 16-Year-Old Girl: Police

A 29-year-old man from New York was charged Friday with giving shots of rum to a 16-year-old girl he had met at Musikfest and brought back to his hotel room, Bethlehem police said.

Eric Anthony Lewis of Mount Vernon, N.Y. was arrested after he admitted to an officer that he had given some Bacardi to the girl, according to an arrest affidavit.

Police responded to the Holiday Inn Express at 2201 Cherry Lane at a little after 4 a.m. Friday morning to check on the welfare of an intoxicated16-year-old girl “in the company of an unfamiliar male,” the affidavit said.

Police found the victim in Room 424 “hunched over in a chair and throwing up in a trash can,” the affidavit said. The girl told police that she had met a group of men at Musikfest and went back to the hotel with them.

The girl also told police that Lewis gave her shots of Bacardi and that she had told him that she is 16, the court papers say. She also told police that she started feeling sick and throwing up because she had too much alcohol.

The girl was taken to St. Luke’s University Hospital in Fountain Hill because of her intoxication level, police said.

Lewis was charged with corruption of minors and furnishing alcoholic beverages to minors. He was arraigned before District Judge Patricia Romig-Passaro and committed to Northampton County Prison in lieu of $25,000 bail.