Hidden bathroom camera found in Tampa, Virginia is part of a growing problem

This story is the latest episode of our YouTube series, “What’s Brewing,” investigative journalist Jenna Bourne’s deep-dive series.Click hereto discover the series and subscribe to our YouTube channel: The Deeper Dive.

Unsuspecting people are secretly recorded during their most private moments. 10 Investigates found that video voyeurism is on the rise in the Tampa Bay area.

We began looking into this issue when we uncovered a hidden camera investigation in Tampa that hadn’t previously been reported in the media: A worker found a camera in a James A Hospital employee’s restroom. Haley for Veterans, disguised as a phone charger, in October 2020.

10 Investigators’ Jenna Bourne Found documentation of the hidden camera incident while looking through records of a whistleblower complaint against the Tampa VA for an unrelated issue.

When she began contacting employees who work in the VA unit where this whistleblower claimed the hidden camera was found, they all said the same thing: contact the public affairs office instead.

A public records request revealed that Tampa VA emailed its staff a few days after Jenna began asking questions, telling them, “As a reminder, if a media representative contacts an employee, they will not is not obligated to respond and must return requests. at the OPA [Public Affairs Office].”

A spokesperson for the US Department of Veterans Affairs confirmed to 10 Investigates that an employee found the camera disguised as a phone charger in the mixed staff bathroom, and VA police identified three people who were recorded on the memory card inside.

“Based on the VA Police’s preliminary investigation, there is no evidence that anyone would have access to the footage without the memory card. On October 16, 2020, three victims were identified and immediately notified of the incident Facility management met with approximately 15 staff assigned to this unit later today,” VA Public Affairs Specialist Gary Kunich wrote in an emailed statement.

Kunich said the VA Inspector General’s Office closed the case in April 2021 and the camera was returned to the VA in Tampa for destruction.

More than a year after the camera was found in the bathroom, neither the VA OIG nor Tampa VA will come out and say no one was ever caught. But the US Attorney’s office confirmed to 10 Investigates that it has not charged anyone.

Jenna requested an interview with Tampa VA Medical Center Executive Director David Dunning.

“We will not be able to arrange an interview at this time… Although unfortunate, this incident does not represent a trend. JAHVH Veterans patients and staff are protected on campus by VA Police, a dedicated department of Federal Law Enforcement Officers who are here to keep everyone safe at our facilities,” Kimberly wrote, Chief of Communications and Media at James A. Haley Hospital for Veterans Affairs. an email.

“I just think it’s absolutely absurd,” said Emily Ashman, who was secretly recorded by her high school fashion design teacher in a locker room. “For those people who were taped, it’s, like, the worst feeling. I mean, with me, I knew who it was. So, I knew who to project my anger at. But for them, it’s just like a complete, absolute – that would take everything away from me, not even knowing.

Ashman was recorded by her teacher Mark Ackett at Bloomingdale’s Senior High, a Hillsborough County public school in Valrico.

Footage from the Hillsborough County State’s Attorney’s Office shows Ackett’s cameras, hidden in cardboard boxes with holes cut out.

The state attorney’s office says 125 students and one staff member have been registered.

“There were 18 videos of me. And then, like, screenshots and snapshots,” Ashman said. “I was completely naked. Because it was a fashion design class. So we literally sewed our own clothes and made clothes. And he had a ‘dressing room’ – it was, like, the closet storage in a teacher’s classroom – where everyone would go there to try on their pieces, make sure they fit…I was changing all my bathing suits – so that was all in there of me trying on all my bathing suits. all my assignments. stuff like that. even changed there for pep workouts. so as far as that goes completely from regular bra to bra sports bra, to shorts, all of it,” Ashman said.

Thanks in part to the bravery of students, like Ashman, who worked with law enforcement and spoke in court, Ackett was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Hillsborough County State’s Attorney’s Office data from the past five years shows that the number of people charged with video voyeurism doubled between 2019 and 2020:

• 2017: 8
• 2018: 6
• 2019: 7
• 2020: 14
• 2021: 10

Data from the state attorney’s office in the 10and The Judicial Circuit – which covers Polk, Highlands and Hardee counties – shows that the number of video voyeurism charges in these counties increased by 50% between 2020 and 2021:

• 2017: 6
• 2018: 7
• 2019: 4
• 2020: 8
• 2021: 12

“People are bored and weird,” said Matt Aubin, cyber intelligence specialist at the Southern Recon Agency.

It’s his job to find hidden cameras – and business is good.

Aubin said he receives 3 to 10 calls every day from people concerned about hidden cameras.

“Honestly, I think it’s the availability of high-quality equipment at really, really, really cheap prices,” Aubin said. “You said they doubled down, but that’s only the ones they actually captured and the ones that were reported. We work in a lot of cases where our clients don’t want that information released.”

In 2017, vacationers found hidden cameras disguised as smoke detectors in a Longboat Key condo they had rented on Airbnb.

In 2018, police arrested a man who allegedly used a hidden camera to secretly recording two people in a bathroom Clearwater Anytime Fitness.

That same year, a the maintenance worker was accused of hiding cameras above ceiling tiles in two restrooms in a Pinellas Park office building.

In 2019, police arrested a man after a woman grabbed him recording it on his phone under a locker room door at Tampa Target.

On Valentine’s Day in 2021, a customer at a Lakeland Circle K found an iPhone in an envelope hidden under the sink while in the restroom. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office arrested a Circle K employee.

In May 2021, an 8and According to the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office, a girl from Suncoast Academy in Sarasota found an Apple iPod Touch in a portable bathroom pointed at the toilet and checking in. The sheriff’s office says a boy admitted the device belonged to him.

We placed six hidden cameras in a kitchen and asked Matt Aubin to walk us through how to find them without any special equipment.

“As I walk in, I see this hook over there – which, in fact, is very commonly used to hold cameras,” Aubin said, immediately finding a camera hidden inside a white plastic hook. on a door.

“Another thing I often look for is unused electronics,” he said as he found another hidden camera plugged into a nearby outlet. “This standard AC/DC adapter has a camera lens here. It really doesn’t matter being here without a cord or something connected to it.

Next, Aubin focused on a camera disguised as a digital clock.

“I also noticed that we basically have two clock radios here. This one seems to have a camera right here in the middle,” he said. “It’s been five clocks in this kitchen. You already have three built-in. Unless you’re just super obsessed with time for some reason, you don’t need that much. So it raises suspicion to go after those.

The second digital clock was also a hidden camera.

The same was true of the adapter to which the second clock was plugged.

“Right in the middle, if you look and see [the lens] above that,” Aubin said.

Then he turned to a camera disguised as a smoke detector, similar to one found in a Longboat Key condo rental in 2017.

“There seems to be a camera lens inside,” Aubin said as he pulled it out of the wall. “When you open it, it doesn’t contain the typical components of a smoke detector. When you look at it, there are actually slots for SD cards and other memories. Well, you usually won’t need a USB-C charger or an SD card in a normal smoke detector… Most people have changed the batteries in smoke detectors before, so you know what you’re doing. look if you look inside, like to know if anything looks a little weird… All the smoke detectors I’ve seen have a test button on them. This one don’t… And it’s not a well-known brand.

Aubin recommends unplugging and removing anything you are unsure of.

“You’re really just looking for anomalies that don’t add up, and then you take a closer look at them,” he said.

Ashman said she has a message for people who think being taped on a hidden camera can’t happen to them.

“It’s hard because before, it was never a thought that crossed my mind in a dressing room, in a store, in a mall. I never thought of anything like that I just feel like people don’t really think like that unless it’s happened to them – because, now, it’s something I think about everywhere I go. So it can happen. And it will happen in a circumstance where you least expect it,” Ashman said.