A man found guilty last week of using hidden cameras to record video of two teenage girls while they were naked was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison.
Frank Landon Adams, 53, was found guilty of tampering with physical evidence, video voyeurism, and interception of oral communication, a third-degree felony.
A jury in Putnam County deliberated for less than an hour before delivering the verdict last Wednesday.
Assistant State Attorney Jennifer Dunton said Adams earned the trust of his victims and then recorded them nude without their knowledge.
Authorities said evidence showed that he used a hidden camera to record two 16-year-old victims while they were using his guest bedroom in his Interlachen home.
Adams also videotaped one of the 16-year-old girls in her bedroom at her house with a hidden camera he placed in the victim’s closet, authorities said.
According to investigators, Adams destroyed physical evidence on his computer with a disk scrubbing program before the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office arrived to serve a search warrant.
Authorities said Adams recorded one of the victims showering in the guest bathroom, and then later, on the telephone after she is dressed. The defendant then went into the bathroom and began a conversation with the victim, which can be heard on recovered video evidence, investigators said.
JUNEAU – A 48-year-old Grafton man charged with secretly videotaping people in his bathroom was found guilty of three counts of misdemeanor invasion of privacy Friday.
Jon M. DeBelak, was sentenced to one year of probation with 60 days of conditional jail time.
According to the criminal complaint, DeBelak’s ex-wife called the police after her sons told her they had found hidden cameras in the bathroom at their father’s lake home in the town of Hubbard. They found a black and white camera hidden in a tissue box and a video camera disguised as an alarm clock, according to the complaint.
The boys had downloaded the images and videos from the cameras onto one of their cell phones to show their mother.
The complaint said that the boys and their mother recognized the woman on the videos as a friend of DeBelak from a water ski team.
The videos were taken between December 2011 and March 2012. The woman in the videos told officers that she had not been aware of the cameras.
Other conditions of probation include no direct or indirect contact or communication with the victim, her residence or her place of employment, except in emergency situations.
The man may not go onto the park grounds when the water ski team is practicing or has tournaments.
A provision prohibiting Debelak from speaking to his sons about the case has been removed. He is not required to register as a sex offender. He must pay a $2,500 fine plus costs.
Jacob Jensen, superintendent for Valdez City Schools, says a third secret camera was found hidden in a computer speaker in the teacher lounge at Gilson Middle School, but the device appeared to have never been activated.
The discovery of the third camera occurred a week ago Monday, while computer technician Nathan Gussert was replacing the computer that had been targeted for secret surveillance by custodial staff last spring.
“It was consistent with the other cameras that were found,” Jensen said in a telephone interview a week ago Tuesday. In this case, it appears the hidden camera had not been activated and no additional video or evidence of additional secret photography has been found.
According to a district press release, Gussert “found an additional wire coming out of the speaker underneath the monitor.”
Gussert “immediately called Scott Porritt, Network Operations Manager, who went over to GMS. Scott then called Melissa Reese, Director of Education Services, who went over to investigate,” the press release said. “At the same time, …Jensen was in a meeting with Police Chief Comer about another matter, so when Melissa called the Superintendent, the Superintendent asked Chief Comer to stay in his office so that they could look at the computer together.”
Reese brought the entire computer to Jensen and Comer. The speaker was pulled off and the case was opened and a camera was found.
The three then “powered up the computer and searched the hard drive for any video recording software or video files, none were found,” the press release said. “This appears to be part of the camera incident that was investigated in April and May of last (school) year and not a new issue. As this camera was probably set up to monitor the person on the computer, it appears to be consistent with the “inappropriate rationale” of monitoring evening custodial computer use.”
The original discovery of a secret camera hidden in a ceiling tile over the computer and a second camera that had been inside a digital clock in the lounge cause widespread outrage amongst district staff and parents, and two staff members resigned within days of the original discovery.
Last May, district superintendent Jacob Jensen displayed the clock radio that featured a hidden camera that had been found in a janitor’s closet in Valdez High School.
Staff and parents were further vexed when it became apparent the hidden cameras were not only legal under state and federal law, but that there was no rule or policy in the school district to prohibit secret video or photography.
Last summer, the board of education for Valdez City Schools rejected a draft policy that banned most secret video surveillance, but would have allowed the superintendent to use secret cameras with board permission.
The board called for a flat-out district wide ban on any secret or hidden cameras on school properties. So far, no new policy to ban secret or hidden cameras has been brought before the board.
Jensen said a new policy to ban the practice will be forthcoming in a future school board meeting.
“We’re adamant against no covert surveillance,” he said.
OAKLAND — A divorce attorney pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges that she hired a private investigator, who was a central character in Contra Costa County’s “dirty DUI” scandal, to illegally install listening devices inside the car of a client’s ex-husband.
Mary Nolan, 60, appeared in Oakland federal court, where she also pleaded innocent to four counts of tax evasion. She faces up to 15 years in prison and $750,000 in fines if convicted on all counts.
Nolan was first linked to disgraced private investigator Christopher Butler,50, in 2010, after two men told The Chronicle that she used their drunken driving arrests against them in divorce and custody battles. Both men have since filed civil lawsuits against Nolan alleging she orchestrated their arrests through Butler.
Butler pleaded guilty earlier this year to using attractive women to meet estranged husbands in bars and set them up for drunken driving arrests by police officers tied for him.
Butler, who is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday afternoon, admitted in court papers that Nolan referred clients to him. He also estimated that he bugged between 75 and 100 cars during his tenure as a private investigators.
Nolan was never charged in connection with the drunken driving scandal that snared Butler and others.
But prosecutors alleged in their separate case against Nolan that in at least one instance she hired Butler to bug the car of a client’s spouse so she could use the recorded information against him in divorce proceedings.
Nolan’s court appearance drew the attention of Phil Dominic, 55, of Oakland, who said Nolan represented his ex-girlfriend in a 2010 custody dispute over their son. His case is not the one forming the basis of the criminal case against Nolan.
Dominic said Nolan lied about him to family court judges and destroyed his relationship with the mother of his son, as well as his child.
“This is Christmas for me,” said Dominic, who heckled Nolan as she left the courthouse.
Dominic said he was organizing a group of men whose wives were represented by Nolan to discuss taking legal action against the attorney.
“I told her one day she’d get caught,” Dominic said. “I told her, ‘One day I’m going to see you on the other side.”
Outside court, Nolan’s attorney Jay Weill declined to comment.
Nolan is scheduled to appear in court next month for further proceedings.
OTTAWA – Canada’s top judges pushed the Crown on Monday to explain why giving police the ability to eavesdrop on text messages with a general warrant wouldn’t be handing them too much power.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin asked Crown attorney Croft Michaelson how long a surveillance leash police should be allowed in asking service providers like Telus to release a customer’s future text messages to them.
McLachlin said it’s “intuitive” that allowing law enforcement to gain access to future communications is a greater infringement on privacy than giving them access to the records of past texts.
“It’s a concern for me certainly,” she said, later adding: “It does feel different to give police future powers and then to say: ‘You can go and look at what’s (already) there.'”
The panel of seven judges decided to hear arguments on the powers police have to snoop on text messages after an Ontario judge granted a general warrant that called for Telus to give law enforcement the texts of two of its customers over a future two-week period.
Telus argues that if police want to acquire the content of text messages in near real time, they should get an authorization to intercept, as they do when they want to intercept phone conversations — a wiretap.
Telus’ lawyer, Scott Hutchison, said the company has been receiving more such warrants from police since 2010.
“This is a wiretap dressed up as a general warrant,” he argued, adding the criminal code governing interceptions — written in 1974 — hasn’t kept up with the way people communicate today.
The Crown argues a general warrant should be enough because police are essentially gathering a record of communications made over a 24-hour period and not intercepting them in real time.
In April, the Supreme Court struck down a law that allows for emergency wiretaps without a warrant.
The judges’ main concern was that people whose communications are intercepted under the provision can be kept in the dark about the wiretap.
McLachlin and others raised similar concerns Monday. If police gain access to texts under a general warrant, those intercepted will never learn their communications had been tapped — which wouldn’t be the case under wiretap laws.
