Criminal Charges:
Man charged in the Bristol County; New Bedford District Court for:
- Photographing Sexual or Intimate Parts without Consent – M.G.L. c. 272, § 105(b)
Case Overview:
Police received a walk-in complaint from a woman who believed she was photographed and/or recorded while using the restroom at a nail salon. After she requested to use the restroom, her male nail technician told her to wait a second, proceeded into the restroom, and then moments later, told her it was all set for use. While in the restroom, she noticed a bag standing upright on a shelf with a hole in it. When she looked inside the bag, she noticed a cell phone standing upright with the camera pointed through a hole in the bag at the toilet. She was unable to unlock the phone, but noticed a picture of the technician and his family on the locked screen. She confronted the employee and left. She described both the technician and cell phone to police. Police went to the nail salon to speak with the technician. He denied the allegations, told police that he had left his phone in the restroom when he was cleaning it, denied photographing, or recording anybody, but admitted his phone was inside the bag containing a hole. Police seized the phone and applied for a search warrant. The phone extraction revealed several deleted photographs from inside the restroom, one of which was taken when the woman was using it. A criminal complaint issued against the technician for Photographing Sexual or Intimate Parts without Consent. He hired Massachusetts Criminal Defense Attorney, John L. Calcagni III, to represent him in his case.
Case Result: Continuation Without a Finding (CWOF) for 18 Months.
The technician ultimately decided to resolve his case short of proceeding to trial. The District Attorney’s Office wanted him to plead guilty, sustain a conviction and serve probation, and the alleged victim was adamant about him registering as a sex offender. After listening to competing arguments, the Court adopted the Defense request continuing the man’s case without a finding for 18 months and avoiding sex offender registration. Providing the man remains arrest free for the continuation period, the case will be dismissed in the end.
