Lyon case spurs effort to tighten state’s video voyeurism law
The ongoing criminal case involving Sacramento real estate magnate Michael Lyon is prompting Sacramento’s district attorney to seek legislative relief for alleged victims of video voyeurism.
At issue: the state’s three-year statute of limitations, which sets a limit on the time prosecutors can initiate criminal proceedings after the offense occurred. Each state determines its own statute of limitations for criminal and civil matters, which aims to balance a victim’s right to justice with a would-be defendant’s right to be free from open-ended legal action.
Memories fade, investigations grow stale and witnesses die or move away.
In California and elsewhere, though, the statute of limitations for video voyeurism has presented a quandary for law enforcement officials, who say predators often operate for years before their activities are discovered. When they are, evidence may literally be staring investigators in the face, but the case is “too old” to seek justice for victims in the criminal courts.
“It’s just basic fairness here,” said Sacramento County Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Jeff Rose.
“The whole purpose of somebody having surreptitious recordings is to keep it secret. Therefore, they get rewarded if they keep it secret long enough i.e., three years where they can never be prosecuted. Somehow, that just doesn’t seem fair.”
Rose said the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office has asked the California District Attorneys Association to back legislation that would start the meter running when the illegal videotaping is discovered not when the offenses occurred.
In Lyon’s case, investigators have discovered sordid images of people being secretly taped in private acts dating back to at least 1988, including two former nannies, sources told The Bee.
However, given the three-year statute of limitations, the District Attorney’s Office was able to bring charges based only on Lyon’s alleged sexual encounters with three prostitutes in 2008 and 2009.
Wiretap charges filed
In late August, Lyon, 54, stepped down as CEO of the company his father founded amid an investigation into whether he had illegally recorded houseguests, friends and prostitutes with cameras hidden in bathrooms and bedrooms.
A 16-month federal probe was closed that same month after the U.S. attorney’s office concluded it lacked the evidence to bring federal charges. But the Sacramento County sheriff and district attorney picked up the investigation in light of the allegations of long-running illegal taping and arrested the prominent businessman in November.
Lyon faces four felony counts of recording confidential communications, charges that stem from allegations that he recorded his sex acts with three prostitutes, without their knowledge, over the past three years. His attorney, William Portanova, has said his client will fight the charges, and Lyon is expected to enter a plea at his next hearing on Jan. 12.
Portanova has repeatedly said Lyon did nothing wrong and recently told The Bee that his client “does not electronically eavesdrop on anybody without their permission, period, plain and simple.”
Lyon is being charged under the state’s wiretapping law, which makes it a crime to record or eavesdrop on private communications which has been interpreted in California to include sexual relations. The state also has a law specifically addressing video voyeurism, a misdemeanor with a one-year statute of limitations.
By filing under the wiretapping law, the district attorney was able to pursue the more serious felony charges and get a wider berth with a three-year statute of limitations. While the current case revolves around prostitutes, Rose recently told The Bee that prosecutors may be able to present the older evidence involving the nannies, houseguests and others to establish a pattern of conduct.
Cory Salzillo, director of legislation for the California District Attorneys Association, said the group will have no formal position on the proposal to change the statute of limitations until after the legislation committee meets in January.
Statutes trail technology
Meanwhile, the idea intrigues several legal experts and victims rights advocates, who say many states’ statute of limitations on illicit recording failed to keep pace with technology and the increasing ease with which unsuspecting victims can be monitored.
Law enforcement documents reviewed by The Bee indicate Lyon concealed high-tech cameras inside clock radios and other household items. Detectives who served search warrants at his home and on his vehicles seized computers, cameras, digital storage devices and a pair of high-tech eyeglasses that can be used to watch videos or make recordings, court documents indicate.
Rose said California’s statute of limitations treats similar crimes unevenly. For instance, in cases of fraud, the three-year time period in which prosecutors can bring charges begins when the crime is discovered. Rose likened fraud to video voyeurism, in that perpetrators of both crimes rely on secrecy and deception and often avoid detection for years.
“Why shouldn’t it be the same in these cases?” he asked.
California’s civil courts also are less restrictive, with victims of illegal taping given one year to file suit from the time the crime was discovered.
In fact, Lyon is being sued by a former nanny and a long-time family friend for allegedly videotaping them secretly when both were teenagers. The two, whose names were not revealed in the lawsuit, accuse Lyon of committing “an egregious breach of societal norms” by taping them while they used bathrooms in his homes.
The former nanny was taped in the shower and bathroom of the Lyon family vacation home near Lake Tahoe sometime around 1992, according to law enforcement documents reviewed by The Bee. The woman was about 16 at the time she was recorded emerging from the shower and blow-drying her hair, the documents state.
The other plaintiff is a family friend who was 18 at the time he was recorded in 2006 while in the bathroom of the Lyon’s Arden Arcade-area home.
Shock is still fresh
Despite the passage of time, the injuries are fresh to the plaintiffs, who recently had to identify themselves on tapes recovered by the FBI, said their attorney, Robert Zimmerman. The recordings have revealed numerous people not just prostitutes who were captured in private moments in Lyon’s homes, the attorney said.
“When you see the cross-section of people involved in this secret monitoring, it just violates trust on so many different levels,” Zimmerman said.
Portanova, Lyon’s attorney, said the limits on prosecuting alleged crimes “are on the books for a reason.” Evidence gets old, memories falter.
“It is difficult to prove your defense years after the fact,” he said. “Generally speaking, the most heinous crimes like murder have no statutes of limitations, and of course that makes sense. But most misdemeanor crimes are prosecutable within a year or the opportunity to prosecute is gone forever, as it should be.”
Every crime misdemeanors and felonies has its own statute of limitations enacted by the Legislature over the past 100 years, he said.
“There’s a balance that has to be found between rational law enforcement and the ability of an individual to gather evidence to meet the accusation,” Portanova said.
Others believe the balance has tipped too far toward defendants when it comes to video voyeurism.
Susan Howley of the National Center for Victims of Crime said she believes it “makes a lot of policy sense” for states to re-examine their statutes for these unique crimes, especially with advancing technology.
“When you have cases like this where you have significant evidence and the prosecutor believes he or she can move forward and make the case there shouldn’t be an arbitrary cutoff of justice here,” she said.
“For many victims, it can be just as devastating even after the passage of time.”
CATCHING UP WITH THE LYON CASE
In late August, real estate magnate Michael Lyon, 54, stepped down as CEO of the company his father founded amid an investigation into whether he had illegally recorded houseguests, friends and prostitutes with cameras hidden in bathrooms and bedrooms.
A 16-month federal probe was closed that same month after the U.S. attorney’s office concluded it lacked the evidence to bring federal charges.
The Sacramento County sheriff and district attorney picked up the investigation in light of the allegations of long-running illegal taping and arrested Lyon in November. He faces four felony counts.
Lyon’s attorney has said his client will fight the charges, and Lyon is expected to enter a plea at his next hearing on Jan. 12.
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By on 26/12/2010