Landlord's Son Plants Spycam - Gets Door Lock Code from Building Camera

According to court documents, the man was accused of attempting to, or successfully entering, a woman’s apartment on 64 occasions... The victim, a woman in her 20s, lived in a one-room apartment owned by the perpetrator's father.

The man tried to break into the apartment by entering random number combinations into the apartment’s electronic lock 26 times. After these failed attempts, he discovered the passcode by watching CCTV footage from the building. He then entered the victim’s home 38 times and installed a spycam to film the victim for sexual purposes...

An appeals court upheld a two-year and six-month prison term, suspended for four years, for a 48-year-old man convicted of illegally breaking into a woman’s apartment numerous times and installing a spy camera for sexual purposes. more

Recent Spycam News

• Hasbro Children’s Hospital Employee Arrested for Video Voyeurism... they said they found a hidden camera in an employee bathroom. more
• Anderson High School student arrested, charged with voyeurism more (video)

• Stuart landlord ordered to prison for installing hidden cameras to spy on 12-year-old girl... cameras they said he hid in the electric outlets of her bedroom more

• Man arrested for video voyeurism in Library West restroom more

• Man accused of secretly photographing woman in Fairfield Township Walmart more

• Jacksonville police seeking suspect who secretly recorded women in bathroom... store surveillance footage, along with video of the confrontation, provided a suspect description. more

• ‘Hidden Spy Camera’: Arizona High School Teacher Allegedly Recorded Students Changing Clothes... the teenager uncovered a charger plugged into the wall which was actually a “hidden spy camera,” Students went on to discover two more, one of which doubled as a clock on the wall. more

• Can you guess which of these everyday objects is actually a spy cam? Hidden spy cameras are still available all over Amazon despite the firm being sued over the gadgets. more

Landlord Used Hidden Cameras to Spy on at Least 13 Tenants

UT - Criminal charges were filed Thursday against a Salt Lake landlord accused of putting hidden cameras in his tenants’ rooms and recording them.

Larry S. Phillips, 69, of Salt Lake City — is already a registered sex offender from a previous conviction...

Police believe Phillips has secretly recorded at least 13 people over the past several years at his house and at other properties...

The investigation began when two men renting rooms in Phillips’ home...each found hidden cameras in their bedrooms that were designed to look like iPhone charger blocks... A SWAT team served a search warrant on Phillips’ house and seized multiple electronic devices.

“A search of the devices located 320 videos of the bathrooms, bedrooms and private bedrooms being rented by the victims...

Investigators say some of the videos also recorded Phillips setting up the hidden cameras (Darwin Award) and adjusting the camera angles. more

Last Month in Spycam News

OH - The 27-year-old manager of Hamad Tire was charged with public indecency and voyeurism... Police... found videos on (his) cellular device "that depicted the secret and surreptitious recording of females using the toilet at the business." (and) discovered a vent had been accessed beneath the HVAC unit that provided hidden access to the female's bathroom without the knowledge of the bathroom's users. more

UK - Victims of a pervert doctor, who was jailed for voyeurism after taking thousands of images of female patients, are seeking compensation. more

TX - Lee Choon Ping has pleaded guilty to video voyeurism after he was caught planting a hidden camera in the toilet of a United Airlines flight... Authorities had identified Lee after comparing surveillance videos to the clips contained in the planted camera. more

Canada - A high school teacher convicted by Canada's top court of voyeurism for secretly video recording female students with a pen camera has been handed a six-month jail term. more

UT - A North Ogden man is being charged with voyeurism after officials allegedly found more than 110 videos of an undressed teenage girl on his computer... the defendant had put a camera in a bathroom and recorded a female juvenile... “Furthermore, the defendant was identified in some of the images while setting up the camera.” more

CT - Detective Lt. Mark Williams says in the past year, Danbury police have responded to four voyeurism incidents in local stores and to one dorm situation involving a student in the shower. more

Canada - A Kelowna man has been arrested after RCMP were called to a local business regarding a possible voyeurism offence... an individual located what they believed to be a small hidden camera in the staff washroom of Summerhill Pyramid Winery... the staff member has been terminated and all other bathrooms, staff and public, have been swept. more

FL - The discovery of a bathroom spy camera led to the arrest of a Gainesville talent manager... a person was in a bathroom with his girlfriend when he noticed a clock that looked like a hidden camera... Shortly after discovering the spy camera, the person who uncovered the camera got an unprompted call from Howard Louis Anderson Jr., 38, trying to explain why he placed the camera there. more 

UK - A physiotherapist placed hidden cameras in bathrooms to secretly film a teenage girl while she got undressed and showered. Andrew Weinzettel, 52, also admitted he secretly filmed another female patient at a physiotherapy clinic in Greenfield Park in Sydney's west... he placed a covert camera disguised as a clothes hook at the clinic, which had a swimming pool for patients. more

TN - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has removed a Utah church official after he was charged with taking photos of a woman undressing in a Tennessee clothing store. more

ID - A 30-year-old Burley man is facing several charges including video voyeurism... According to the charges, the victim family called investigators when they discovered wiring in their basement that went up under a bathroom sink outlet that had a wireless camera attached to it with the lenses installed under the counter top facing the shower. more

SC -Officers were called to La Bamba Mexican Restaurant on South Woody Jones Boulevard (stop snickering) for a voyeurism incident. Police learned that a customer went into the restroom and found a cellphone concealed in the restroom and recording video. more

OH - A former Maumee real estate agent was sentenced to serve six months ... for placing a recording device inside a bathroom and hallway of his Maumee residence — which captured recordings of a 16-year-old and a 19-year-old who lived in the home. more

 TX - A man accused of planting a recording device in a neighbor’s bathroom had 20 terabytes of data, more than 1 million images and multiple victims... the device was determined to be a Phylink brand covert wireless camera. They said this brand of camera is capable of capturing video, audio and can be accessed through a local network. more

FL - Man hid camera in smoke detector... in a room that he only rented out to women; pleads guilty to video voyeurism. more

AR - A convenience store employee found a hidden cellular telephone with the video camera activated beneath and behind the toilet of the restroom. The camera recorded the suspect as he positioned and re-positioned the camera several times. more

UK - A pervert put his mobile phone in a toilet and recorded women in a cubicle inside.

Thomas Stephens recorded himself setting up the camera in the unisex toilet in East Grinstead. more

Canada - A Guelph doctor is facing possible disciplinary action from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario... a hidden camera was allegedly found in a staff washroom at his practice in Mississauga.  more

LA - A New Orleans man faces more than a decade in prison after his conviction for hiding a camera in a bathroom and capturing video of a 16-year-old girl showering. more

KY - A landlord for a Louisville condominium is facing voyeurism charges after a camera was found hidden in a tenant's vent... she discovered a camera hidden in the vent above her bed. Police identified the man in the video as the woman's employer and landlord. more

AZ - A Glendale man was arrested for the second time for allegedly planting a video recording device in a bathroom, this time at a mall ice cream shop. more

VT - A Kimpton Taconic Hotel employee found a cell phone in the corner of a restroom in the hotel's basement level, which is accessible only to employees, according to a police affidavit. more

DC - FBI employee charged with voyeurism after allegedly placing camera under woman's desk...  the woman said she was sitting at her desk, when she switched the position of her legs, and she hit the camera and caused it to hit the ground. more

UK - Police are investigating a second alleged Peeping Tom spying on women on the set of the new James Bond movie. A 49-year-old man was arrested back in June and charged with voyeurism after a recording device was found in a women’s toilet at Pinewood Studios. more

Had enough? Want to protect your restrooms, avoid embarrassing publicity and costly lawsuits? Check out... Spycam Detection in Workplace Expectation of Privacy Areas — Conduct professional forensic investigations to detect covert spy cameras and create a Recording in the Workplace policy.

This Week in Spycam News

UK - A creepy landlord put a secret camera in a bathroom to film a female tenant...she noticed a black cylindrical object in the bathroom but did not pay too much notice...after three to four days she saw a red light blinking and found the device had a memory card. more

Walmart

$78.83

IN - A former Southern Indiana law enforcement officer accused of videotaping a child under 18 getting in and out of the shower. He's also accused of setting up hidden cameras to secretly watch that same child and another one. more

NYC - The husband of a Manhattan prosecutor could face criminal charges after he and his wife allegedly videotaped their nanny undressing and showering in their bathroom...she spotted the hidden camera, disguised to look like a black iPhone charger. “I noticed a glare, and I was just like, wait this is odd, so I pulled it out of the socket, and the last video is me looking at it like, ‘What is this?’” more

CT - Police reported that a suspect in the Connecticut College voyeurism case has been arrested for a second time...the incidents involved cellphone cameras that were pointed at women who were preparing to shower at residence hall gender-inclusive bathrooms. more

UK - An animal rights investigator allegedly caught the moment a hunt’s master fed live fox cubs to his dogs... The court heard how an animal rights investigator, Karl Garside, captured the incident after placing a magnetic tracker on Parry’s Land Rover.  He said the cameras were installed near white trailers on site of SHH Kennels, where he also found a fox cub in a cage. more

KY - A former Murray High School teacher and coach accused of placing a video recorder in a bathroom was in court on Thursday...staff reported finding a recording device set up in the bathroom of the nurse's station. Police say the recorder captured Boggess putting the device in place. (Darwin Award!) more

LA - A Livingston Parish man has been arrested on his second offense of video voyeurism. more

SC - During the search, investigators found more than 40,000 files of child pornography and hidden cameras in his bedroom and bathroom that he used to film adults and children for nearly 14 years since 2003. more

CA - A former Canadian Armed Forces member who allegedly hid cameras in bathrooms and bedrooms in various locations in Canada and the United states is still awaiting a verdict from the military court in CFB Esquimalt...A police search of his home in Virginia recovered several pinhole spy cameras, a digital clock with a camera hidden in it, three smoke alarms with cameras hidden in it, as well as audio recording devices, external hard drives, and a laptop. more 

SpycamDetection.Training

Spycam News: Multi-Millionaire Landlord Pleads Guilty to Secretly Filming his Tenants

Australia - A multi-millionaire Sydney landlord will face sentencing next month after pleading guilty to charges relating to secretly filming his tenants without consent to obtain sexual arousal.

Masaaki Imaeda, 66, installed hidden cameras into his rental properties so he could spy on tenants having sex or undressing...

After finding a warning about Imaeda and his spy cameras on a Japanese website, a husband and wife who rented a bedroom from him found a camera in their bedroom light fitting.

The young couple called police, who found multiple other hidden cameras inside the house...

He faces up to two years in prison. more

UK - A Starbucks customer in London was left “shocked and disgusted”* after finding a hidden camera above a toilet in a branch of the coffee shop. 

Ricci Arcari, 33, was at the Starbucks in Vauxhall when he spotted the device hidden in an air vent directly above the unisex toilet.

He told The Independent: “I go in [to the store] regularly. I ordered my drink and while I was waiting I popped in to use the toilet.

“I was standing using the toilet when I noticed a little glint Iike the way glass reflects.

“I stood on top of the toilet seat to get a better look and realised it was a webcam or some other kind of recording device.”

Mr Arcari, who used to work for Starbucks himself, said he ran out of the toilet, asked to speak to the store manager and showed him the camera.

The manager seemed “pretty shocked” and reportedly said “Oh God, that’s not good".

The device was immediately taken down and placed in a bag to be passed to police. more

 * May also be applied to the dirty air vent grill.
Protect yourself.

Spycam Ejection

Australia - A Brisbane landlord has been slammed for installing CCTV cameras inside his rental property and spying on his tenants, who he evicted once they complained.

Renters Ben and Lila - who withheld their surnames - told Channel Nine's A Current Affair they noticed they were being recorded on the first day they moved into their new apartment.

The security camera was set up in the lounge room, switched on and recording.

According to the program, the furious flatmates immediate flicked the switch on the camera, before they were contacted by the landlord who said they had to turn it back on.  more video

Spying Landlord Hit with $1M Verdict

MD - A Montgomery County Circuit Court jury has found a Chevy Chase man liable for more than $1 million in damages for using a hidden camera to spy on a former tenant and her then-boyfriend. (more)

SpyCam Story #664 - This Month In SpyCam News

SpyCam stories have become commonplace and the techniques used, repetitive. We continue to keep lose track of the subject for statistical purposes, but won't bore you with too many details. Links supplied. 

"What's up Doc?"

VA - Foot doctor hides restroom spycam in box of latex gloves. Employee fingers it.
LA - Gynecologist documents work too well. 186 counts of video voyeurism.
NY - Urologist arrested for upskirting. 
CA - Plastic surgeon for celebrities with spycam in dressing room.

The Usual Suspects...
ID - Nature lover films women using campground shower. Admits to dozens of films.
ID - Cell phone + tissue box + employee restroom...
ID - Man has pleads guilty to video voyeurism.
CT - Cell phone + tissue box + bathroom... 
CT - Subway sandwich employee stuffs spycam into insulation under the bathroom sink.

KY - Man charged with placing spy cam in Wal-Mart men's room. Hold the KY jokes. 

CO - Man hiding in Yoga festival porta-potty tank pleads not guilty. Try insanity next time.

AR - Hidden camera in girl's bedroom. A dolt claims, "to see if she was having sex."
AR - Tanning bed spycam'er pleads guilty. 
FL - Man gets 10 years for spycam in bedrooms and evidence tampering.
LA - Ex-security guard - 42 counts of voyeurism. Hid spycams in restrooms at his building.
MI - Man jailed for taping sexual encounter between himself and three women.

UK - Landlord with clothes hook spycam hung by his own petard.
UK - Married vicar suspended after arrest on suspicion of voyeurism.

Canada - Swimming instructor puts spycam in staff-only locker room. 
Canada - Clothing store dressing room cam-man turns himself in. 
Canada - Another clothing store cam-man.
Austria - Artist installs one-way mirror in cafe. Peeks from mens restroom into ladies room. 

School Daze...
KY - A real McCoy caught upskirting at college.
NJ - Chief custodian at Catholic high school + 8 cameras - Arrested.
CT - Cell phone + college co-ed showers... What could possibly go wrong? 
IN - Janitor + spycam + locker room.
IN - Middle School science teacher + spycam + women's faculty restroom at the school. 
OH - Middle School teacher + spycam + 2 female teachers in teachers-only bathroom.
OH - High school coach + camera in Boy's Locker Room, pleads not guilty. 
CT - School psychologist + camera + house guest.

Darwin Awards...
AR - Wife finds video of underage girl on his/her computer. He filmed himself setting it up.
Canada - Likes to watch women sleep. Voyeurism no, B&E yes. Cell phone left behind.

UK - Male nurse arrested for spycaming at Stonyhurst College found hanged at home.

SpyCam Story #598 - The Tax Man Attacks

FL - On January 13, 2011, a jury awarded damages of $476,200.00 against Kenneth Wayne Ryals, a landlord who had serially spied on his young female tenants by means of a micro video camera hidden in a DVD player he provided with the rental. 

Mr. Ryals, who is an Internal Revenue Service agent, had confessed to the Davie Police Department that he had watched Plaintiff for his viewing pleasure... 

Further, despite the pendency of the lawsuit, Mr. Ryals willfully destroyed all the physical evidence in the case, eleven pieces of electronic equipment, including the spy cam that he had hidden in the plaintiffs bedroom...

The plaintiff filed the suit in hopes that her suit would appeal to Mr. Ryals conscience and encourage him to stop preying on young women like herself. Mr. Ryals, however, has never shown any remorse for his conduct. Within a week of his arrest by the Davie Police for video voyeurism on September 14, 2007, he was soliciting new female renters through the website Roommates.com. (more)

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean...

Brooklyn College in the Land of the Free had a novel way of dealing with a student who claimed that there was a spy camera in her room.

When she went to the Brooklyn College Campus Security and Safety Office to complain that her off campus landlord was using a spy cam on her, they offered her an involuntary two-week stay at a psychiatric hospital to treat her "paranoia".

The only thing was that the landlord had installed a spy camera in Chinemerem Eze's bedroom. It is not clear why, or what he was doing with the film. However, Eze found the camera after she had been "cured" by the hospital.

By the time she got out of the loony bin she missed her final exams and was not able to complete them.

As a result she wound up losing a scholarship she'd received from the school. (more)

SpyCam Story #561 - The New Miranda Warning

FL - A woman who is suing her former landlord over allegations he secretly set up a spy camera in her bedroom is asking a judge to add punitive damages to her claim.

Miranda Goldston, 26, filed her lawsuit seeking compensatory damages against Kenneth Ryals, 59, in December 2007, three months after she discovered the spy camera hidden inside a DVD player in her bedroom. (more)

SpyCam Story #543 - The Tell-Tale Tape

OR - Last year the woman told police told police she thought her landlord was spying on her through a hidden camera in the shower.

The woman lived in an upstairs apartment inside the home the landlord shared with a second renter. That landlord - former Kalama City Council member Paul Stickel - has been charged with voyeurism, but he claims he did no such thing.

Police searched Stickel's home last Spring and confiscated videotapes, televisions and cable. They also found a hole in the wall in the woman's bathroom.

In a March 2008 affidavit, police said videotape taken from Stickel's home "shows Stickel simulating taking a shower" to test the camera-equipped shower stall. Detectives also cited a "secret viewing area" - a covered peephole - that looks out through a mirror on the woman's medicine cabinet.

Stickel claims the investigators are bluffing. (more) (video)

SpyCam Story #525 - Yet another Landlord

ND - Skylar Holte and Heather Sondrol, claim Wahpeton resident Anthony Siemieniweski, their landlord, had placed a camera with a microphone in a heating vent in their bedroom.

Siemieniweski, who lives next door, allegedly ran wires from the camera to his house, which when plugged in, would allow him to view and hear anyone in the bedroom of the rental home. The charges, sworn by Wahpeton Police Officer April Jose, state Siemieniewski set up the camera approximately two years ago.

Siemieniewski is now scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing at 1 p.m. Thursday, May 7. (more)

SpyCam Story #521 - The Landlord's Son

MI - An arrest warrant says a suspect accused of placing hidden video cameras in one of his father's rental properties put the devices in a bedroom and a bathroom, court records reveal.

Bradley Scott-Irving Graves, 25, waived a probable cause hearing Wednesday in Rockford District Court and will face trial on two two-year felony charges for possessing and installing eavesdropping equipment...

The arrest affidavit alleges Graves went to the home and told the tenants he was installing a smoke detector in the bedroom and a mold detector in the bathroom.

A man in the home was suspicious of the claim from Graves, who acts as the maintenance person for his father's rentals, according to court documents.

"(The victim) further investigated and noted that the mold detector was a camera as well as the detector in the bedroom," sheriff's Detective Ed Kolakowski wrote in court records.

Police also found a VCR recording from the devices in a basement. (more) (more) (more) (video)

UPDATE - 5/7/09 - A high tech peeper has admitted to installing a camera in his tenant's shower. This week Bradley Graves entered a guilty plea to a felony charge of eavesdropping, installing and using a device. Graves will be sentenced in June. (more)

SpyCam Story #462 - Landlord Spies Students

NY - Two Hofstra University students moving into an apartment discovered that the landlord had hidden spy cameras in smoke detectors to wirelessly transmit video of their bedrooms to his personal computer, Nassau police said.

The landlord, Michael Muratore, 44, who lives on the first floor of the house, was arrested Monday at the home and charged with unlawful surveillance.

Muratore, a married financial adviser, told police he had installed the cameras to protect his property, "to make sure there was no damage being done to the apartments," said Det. Sgt. Anthony Repalone, a police spokesman.

The secret installation plan began to unravel when the students asked a friend to check the detectors to make sure they were working properly. The friend tested the devices and realized they were not functioning, police said.

The friend brought one of the detectors to a local firehouse, where a volunteer firefighter realized "the guts were removed from that smoke detector and in its place was a digital video camera and some sort of a transmitter," Repalone said. (more)

SpyCam Story #409 - "Dumkoff..."

German police have arrested a 60-year-old landlord after discovering he used cameras and microphones to spy on his tenants for a decade while they bathed and slept.

The man had installed surveillance in the bedrooms, bathrooms and living areas of two flats 10 years ago ... one of his tenants discovered the bugging last week while she was cleaning the flat.

Police suspect he had sexual motives... "Why do you think someone would put a camera in the bathroom -- to see if it was being cleaned correctly?" asked Bavarian police spokesman Ulrich Poepsel. (more)