Former 8th Circuit Assistant State Attorney William Ezzell, 37, was charged Friday with video voyeurism for allegedly using a cellphone to record a woman in her underwear at a Gainesville tanning salon. The bizarre case could end a career that included some notable cases for Ezzell as a prosecutor.
The alleged victim says that she spotted a cellphone being held above a partition at TanUSA in Gainesville. She says that she could see the light was on for recording as she was applying lotion to her legs and screamed “What are you doing?” She says that a man responded by saying “I don’t know why you say that.” She quickly got dressed and confronted Ezzell, screaming “Get the **** out you pervert.” Ezzell was identified as the alleged suspect by his registration at the salon and surveillance video.
The 51-year-old woman also later identified as Ezzell as the man who stood behind her at the counter and said that he was “looking at me weird.” One report says that a surveillance video also captured Ezzell walking into the salon and looking at the woman, including an image of a badge inside Ezzell’s wallet.
Ezzell was the Levy County Division Chief and handled the high profile murder trial of Pedro Bravo. That prosecution led to convictions for murder, false imprisonment and other charges for the 2012 killing of Christian Aguilar, an 18-year-old University of Florida student. Ironically, it turned on surveillance video from businesses and cellphone records.
Ezzell resigned after the story broke on the arrest. In an email, he said “Out of respect for the victim, the prosecutor and the judicial system, I have no comment.”
The crime is defined under Florida law as:
(2) A person commits the offense of video voyeurism if that person:
(a) For his or her own amusement, entertainment, sexual arousal, gratification, or profit, or for the purpose of degrading or abusing another person, intentionally uses or installs an imaging device to secretly view, broadcast, or record a person, without that person’s knowledge and consent, who is dressing, undressing, or privately exposing the body, at a place and time when that person has a reasonable expectation of privacy;
(b) For the amusement, entertainment, sexual arousal, gratification, or profit of another, or on behalf of another, intentionally permits the use or installation of an imaging device to secretly view, broadcast, or record a person, without that person’s knowledge and consent, who is dressing, undressing, or privately exposing the body, at a place and time when that person has a reasonable expectation of privacy; or
(c) For the amusement, entertainment, sexual arousal, gratification, or profit of oneself or another, or on behalf of oneself or another, intentionally uses an imaging device to secretly view, broadcast, or record under or through the clothing being worn by another person, without that person’s knowledge and consent, for the purpose of viewing the body of, or the undergarments worn by, that person.
Source: Gainesville
“Tom” named guys on the blog should be offended. He is a Peeping Bill.
????
What cell phone has an “indicator light” when recording?
Paul C. Schulte
ich liebe dich
😉
happy, Men can indeed be scum. It was men who started WW2, trying to eliminate a whole race of people. It was also men storming the beaches of Normandy, knowing they would die, to stop that evil. We are the Ying and the Yang.
Nick – I blame women for WWII. Hitler wanted lebensraum. He only needed it because German women were breeding like rabbits. And if it were not for the women who took over the mens’ jobs on the home front and in clerical jobs in the military, we would not have been able to put as many men ‘in harm’s way.’ What we needed was the women to copy the women of the Greek play Lysistrata and go on a sexual strike until war ended.
Nick – It’s all good. We were all created by the same one and we all are one. It’s too bad we became genderfied on the way somewhere
He could go from prosecution of perps to prostitution with pimps.
men are scummmmm…… 😉
This is an inside baseball thing w/ me.
Shadow, You are almost certainly correct. Except, dressing rooms are often cramped w/ little place to put personal belongings. They also often have walls that do not extend to the ceiling, to facilitate conversation. I could see someone hastily putting their cell phone on top of the wall. But, w/ the indicator light on, a person even in their own world and not the suspicious type would say, “WTF?” People would be amazed how some people are oblivious to their environs. People run the gamut, from the oblivious to the hinky.
Tape over the indicator light or not, one’s suspicions are going to be aroused when one looks up to see a cell phone looking down at you from above a partition. There’s just no good reason for that cell phone to be there. It’s about as unusual and misplaced as a cell phone looking up at you from underneath a lavatory stall.
He is a lawyer. What’s the big deal?
Let me say up front, this guy is a creep. Having worked w/ prosecutors, they are, like most people, good and honest. But, they have enormous power, and as mentioned earlier, power CAN corrupt. It does not corrupt the vast majority. Having worked on Peeping Tom, telephone harassment, cases, this guy was almost certainly a pervert prior to becoming a prosecutor. I can almost guarantee you there are many women who have been victimized w/o their knowledge. Playing armchair shrink, looking @ the age difference, there may be a little Oedipal stuff going on here.
Now, from a clinical standpoint. The FIRST thing I did w/ any video camera I purchased, and I have probably bought close to a hundred, is put black electrical tape over the light that indicates the camera is operating. The pervert made a rookie mistake. Which tells me while he has probably been a voyeur for some time, he make be new @ videotaping.
With the easy availability of semi and completely naked women on the internet, I don’t understand why this would even be something a man would consider doing.
Bailers – there is such a big difference between pictures of women and real women. 😉
Power corrupting etc., etc., etc..
issac – if I were him I would go for the stress defense. When I was in grad school one of the Ph.D. candidates was running around the library flashing the female graduate students. It wasn’t until they caught him until they realized the pressure had just been too much for him. They released him to his family and a therapist. I heard later that he completed the degree but he couldn’t come to the library by himself. 😉
Prison is a university to learn other criminal activities. Prosecutors learn how to commit crimes just like the police do. However, given his clumsiness, this was probably both opportunistic and his first time.
Another argument for mental exams for people in power….