University of Florida Professor Don Samuelson, 65, has been arrested for a rather bizarre obsession. Using a camera pen, Samuelson was accused of filming under the clothing of female students in his class. What is even more bizarre is his defense: he insists that he was doing research to determine whether any students were not “wearing undergarments.” What Samuelson insisted was harmless research is considered by the police to be voyeurism.
Arrested on two felonies, the best thing to do is to stay quiet, listen to Miranda, and invoke. Police say that Samuelson opted to admit to filming under the skirts of students but insisted it was in the name of research. Of course, that is a non-starter like claiming flashing bystanders is research. It could well be but it is also a crime. The claim however did not exactly fit the record. Samuelson is quoted as saying that he was “attempting to gather proof” that one of the women “was not wearing undergarments” in class. However some videos were taken of a student’s breasts. When confronted on the anomaly in his “research,” Samuelson “acknowledged that this activity was ‘inappropriate.’” Which leads me again to the question of why he did not remain silent.
The statute covers such videotaping “for his or her own amusement, entertainment, sexual arousal, gratification, or profit, or for the purpose of degrading or abusing another person.” That does not include “research” but then again his “research” did not include breast shots. I foresee a plea in the future.
A professor of Veterinary Medicine, Samuelson would use a camera pen for students working in this laboratory. One victim realized that he was filming her and a search of his office uncovered the camera pen with an integrated USB thumb drive.
If convicted, he faces a maximum of five years in prison on each felony count though, as a first offender, he could expect less.
The University has taken down Samuelson’s name on its website, but another website states his interests as:
My principal interests involve comparative anatomy and physiology of most organ systems of the body with special emphasis on those structures associated with marine mammals. We are currently working with sensory, reproductive, immune and integumentary systems. There are also ongoing eye-related studies associated with age-related diseases, including glaucoma and macular degeneration.
Thank you Mike Spindell;
I’m one who adores the Law and how great educated minds break things down into KIS simplicity with verbal succinctness literate.
You’ve given me a coin of rebuttal I’m going to have great need for;
and will utilize this very day.
Thanks
TY OS;
As is readily apparent, the fraud of Goldman Sachs & Bain Capital against eToys has received more media attention in this last year; than it has for the last decade plus years.
I’m actually giddy!
Mike Spindell;
Please, kind sir, permit me to plagiarize your DavidM reflect?
You have NO idea how apropos such literalness is to so many who troll me!
Laserhaas,
In the words of a happy Buddha from the blog’s past: One lives to be of service.” 🙂
laser, I saw that. Tip and rec.
Which – Anonymously Yers ;0p
is more mightier than de skull & bones
N’est-ce pas!
“If convicted, he faces a maximum of five years in prison on each felony count though, as a first offender, he could expect less.”
Call me a be-knighted fool but dies anyone else think that the potential punishment seems way over the top for the crime. The guy’s a perverted jerk, should lose his job etc., but prison……really? I know that its just overcharging in the name of a plea bargain, but such prosecutorial behavior is what has been making a joke of our criminal justice system.
“What makes voyeurism so much more evil than speech expressing death and damnation from on high?”
DavidM,
You absolutely MUST keep posting here! I get such pleasure from reading your comments because you really believe them to be reasonable and insightful. Your intellectual hubris is a most pleasing self satire.
Mike Spindell wrote: “…anyone else think that the potential punishment seems way over the top for the crime.”
Yes.
What a waste of a career.
Well Laserhaas,
He did have balls….and a pen….
by the way OS –
I did the Taibbi thingy on the orange realm
OS – as the Judge Rakoff of Professor Turley’s realm; cutting through the chaff – to hit the nitty gritty…
Also an appeal to emotion, David. Prof. Guth made no specific threats to anyone. If I said, “The next time an asteroid hits Earth, I hope it falls on someone engaging in fallacious attempts to logically justify their moralizing”, that is no more of a threat to you than the statements of Prof. Guth vis a vis gun violence and those who argue in extremis for the 2nd Amendment (a right which, like most, is not absolute although it is necessary). As OS notes, what Guth said was protected free speech. What Prof. Samuelson did was a criminal violation.
Carry on.
David,
One is protected speech. The other is a crime. To conflate them is a false equivalence fallacy, sometimes called the “fallacy of extremes.”
Carry on.
Interesting to me is the defenses that are made for expressions of hatred and damnation by University of Kansas professor Guth in another thread, but a voyeuristic professor at University of Florida is destined to be terminated. What makes voyeurism so much more evil than speech expressing death and damnation from on high?
Of course, a daughter of mine is currently attending this university, living on campus this very moment in fact, so I would feel my daughter is safer if this professor is terminated.
just another nutty professor
Ma always said a poor excuse is better than none….BUT it should at least be believable!
LoL
I can picture it now, the foot table politico who got arrested in the public bathroom, now having a toe camera to just s l i d e ever so slightly over and take a peek-see.
Talk about dirty ole man –
this fits the bill!
His pen is exciter to his sword.
Buh Bye Teach.
Don,
Did it ever occur to your “scholarlymind” that simply, oh I don’t know, asking them might have gotten your “data”?
Research.
Really?
Reblogged this on The International Blogspaper.
Somebody should have given him a Ewe and Lingerie …. With Queens song….. Somebody to Love…… After all he is in Veterinary Medicine…. I think a CheWaWa….would be too small….
One sick…..I think mofo…. Is the best word….