Video voyeurism in public and private places

Posted at: 09/29/2012 11:28 PM
By: Dan Levy

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SARATOGA SPRINGS - Area police have made arrests in two very different but equally disturbing cases of video voyeurism in recent weeks.

Inside the Hannaford supermarket on Wolf Road, Colonie Police say 54-year old Patrick Kaiser, a retired fire lieutenant from Canastota, New York, had rigged a video camera inside his shoe and went around aisle to aisle recording the view looking up women's skirts.

"You would think they would have to be really right up next to you in your personal space," said Shannon Judisky, of Rensselaer, stopping by at the Colonie supermarket to shop on Saturday night. "That would frighten me just having someone I don't know do that."

Fortunately, an off-duty Albany police officer saw what was happening, notified Colonie Police, and Kaiser was arrested in the Hannaford parking lot.

In Saratoga Springs recently, police say a young girl found a cell phone that was recording video of women and girls undressing inside the womens' locker room of the Saratoga Polo and Golf Club.

"When we recovered the phone, we believe all of the images were contained on the phone," said Assistant Saratoga Springs Police Chief Gregory Veitch. "They were not transmitted anywhere else."

Police charged a 15-year old boy, a juvenile, with that crime. He will appear in family court.

"It is just for the personal gratification of the offender but we also know through experience that these images are often shared, or downloaded, and sold," Veitch said. "We're thankful in this case that that doesn't appear to be what happened."

Veitch says his police department is dealing with video voyeurism more often these days, suggesting it's becoming much easier for someone with the mindset to do it, to engage in that sort of behavior.

Patrick Kaiser was in the Albany County Jail Saturday night, without bail, charged with criminal trespass and unlawful surveillance.

The Oneida Daily Dispatch is reporting that Kaiser was arrested in 2006 after installing surveillance equipment in an apartment he was renting out, and watching his tenants on his living room television set. He spent three years in prison for that crime.