The man charged with stalking a 12-year-old girl in Mastic was wearing an electronic tiffany and co tracking device on his ankle that helped catch him, just days before he was to complete federal probation on a heroin conviction, police and federal officials said.

Suffolk police do not believe Wayne McGowan, 39, of Mastic Beach, is connected to other recent high-profile incidents involving students in the William Floyd School District that have gained notoriety and triggered neighborhood protests.

The ankle bracelet McGowan was wearing — plus an anonymous tipster and a vehicles database — helped police focus on him and the distinctive red Hummer truck he was driving when the girl was accosted last week, Suffolk police said.

McGowan was arrested Tuesday, days after he tried to coax the girl into the Hummer — which belongs tffany keys to his girlfriend — at the girl’s bus stop at Pawnee Avenue and Madison Street in Mastic on Jan. 17, Suffolk police said. The girl boarded her bus and reported the incident to police and the school.

Following the girl’s complaint and an anonymous 911 call reporting that a similar truck was parked near McGowan’s Edgewater Drive home, detectives queried a vehicle database and compiled a list of red Hummer trucks near the Mastic crime scene, Suffolk Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said.

“If you’re going to do a crime,” Dormer said, “don’t pick a red Hummer.”

Using data from McGowan’s court-ordered bracelet, investigators eventually concluded that McGowan was not home when the girl was allegedly accosted at the bus stop.

McGowan had served more than 2 years in federal prison on a heroin charge, and he began a 3-year probation tiffany bracelets period in January 2005, according to Felicia Ponce, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C. The probation was to end tomorrow night, said Andrew Bobbe, senior deputy chief of federal probation.

McGowan had no criminal record for sex crimes, said Lt. JoAnn McLaughlin, who heads the plainclothes unit at Suffolk’s Seventh police precinct.

McGowan — who could face additional trouble for possible probation violations — was charged with third-degree stalking and second-degree aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, police said.

“It was persistent,” Dormer said, referring to the stalking allegations against McGowan. “That made it different from just one time, ‘Do you want a lift? Get into my car.’ He went around. It was four encounters with the young lady. He was persistent after this 12-year-old.”

In addition to the Hummer incident last Thursday, a man grabbed and fondled a girl on Jan. 14 as she walked to school.

And in a third case, a Shirley man was arrested on charges including sexual abuse and criminal impersonation after he told a 14-year-old girl he was an undercover cop and abused her for hours on Jan. 10 in his trailer near her school, police said.

The incidents have prompted Suffolk police to set up special checkpoints to search for the suspects and boost the tiffany bangles number of patrols in the area.

School officials welcomed news of McGowan’s arrest.

“The school district is grateful and appreciative to the Suffolk County Police for their excellent work,” said Andy Kraus, a spokesman for the William Floyd School District. “The district will continue to work with the county and the town and the community to improve conditions.”

Staff writer Joseph Mallia contributed to this story.

THE DEVICE AND HOW IT WORKS

The electronic monitoring device that helped nab accused child stalker Wayne McGowan in Mastic is no bigger than a pack of smokes.

It was strapped just above one of McGowan’s ankles, and data from the device told investigators that the man was not in his home when the 12-year-old girl was accosted last week at a bus stop.

McGowan’s device was wirelessly hooked up to a phone line that stayed in constant touch with a central computer system maintained by a federal contractor in Denver.

He could never take it off: he even had to shower with it on.

When McGowan left or returned home, the system recorded the time.

Depending on an offender’s financial situation, the person is usually required to give the government a co-pay to help defray the cost of the monitoring device.

Although McGowan had been on federal probation since shortly after his release from prison more than three years ago, a federal official said, the bracelet requirement was only several months old. Federal authorities declined to explain the reason for the heightened monitoring requirements for McGowan.

SOURCES: Probation Department of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York; Suffolk County Police Department

Credit: Newsday, Melville, N.Y.