Cops: Neighbor Spied on Woman With Selfie-Stick

Bethesda woman allegedly recorded by peeping tom for over a year
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 2, 2015 4:25 PM CDT
Selfie-Stick Sex Crime Now on the Books in Maryland
If you see this outside your window, you probably shouldn't ignore it.   (Shutterstock)

Peeping Toms have officially entered the 21st century. A 60-year-old man in Bethesda, Md., is accused of using a camera mounted on a selfie stick to record videos of a neighbor for more than a year—including at least one when she was naked, the AP reports. Donald Frazier Beard was busted after the 58-year-old woman spotted something outside her living room window while catching a football game with a friend, the Washington Post reports. Court documents indicate she opened her door and yelled, "What are you doing?"—only to see the camera disappear and hear the click of a door being shut. The creeped-out woman called the cops, who ended up getting a strange explanation from Beard when they confronted him.

Per the Post, he conceded to using the camera/stick contraption to "spy" on the unsuspecting woman, but he maintained that he was doing so "for investigative purposes"—namely, to provide proof to other women that his neighbor was spending time with their husbands. He also admitted he thought his neighbor was "attractive" and insisted he had erased all the recordings. Police, however, found photos, at least 16 videos, a carefully labeled file of the topless recording, and what the Post describes as an "audio diary" of sorts in which he recorded her daily movements. He faces charges including using a camera to record a private residence, but a Montgomery County court turned down the woman's request for a protective order. (Remember when Massachusetts was A-OK with upskirt photos?)

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