Court docs: Camera was disguised to record nude video of woman in tanning room
NEW CASTLE, Ind. (WISH) — A New Castle man faces charges after being accused of using a camera disguised as a USB device to record a woman in the nude.
30-year-old Zachary Chalfant faces two felony charges for voyeurism and attempted voyeurism.
Court documents state that a member of the cleaning staff at Anytime Fitness in New Castle had turned over what she thought was USB thumb drive over to management on Aug. 29, 2015. She said that she took it to management to be placed in lost and found.
The manager took the device and plugged it into a computer in an attempt to find out who the owner was. That was when he realized it was actually a motion-activated camera. When he reviewed the files, he located two videos. One was a video of an employee, without her knowledge or consent, in a state of undress in a tanning bed room. The other was a video of man, believed to be Chalfant, to be placing and positioning the device on a shelf.
Two days later, on Aug. 31, upper management contacted police. In the meantime, court documents state that the member of management that was originally given the device had made copies of the videos on an Anytime Fitness computer, labeling them “Evidence.” He said management told him to immediately delete the videos. The owner of the gym told the manager to keep the device secure with him, so the manager put it in a plastic bag and took it home with him for the weekend.
The victim said she had never actually seen Chalfant exercise at the facility, stating that usually came in to tan or use the restroom. She also said she had never spoken to Chalfant, but was Facebook friends with him and had never conversed with him on Facebook either.
Police served a search warrant on a resident in the 1100 block of Lincoln Avenue in New Castle. Court documents state that Chalfant had been living with his sister and her fiance in their basement. Police recovered burned DVDs, a box for a hidden camera, external hard drives, USB drives, SD cards and a micro SD card.
Chalfant’s sister told police that her brother was likely to go to his parent’s house if he believed he was in trouble. That’s where police found Chalfant, in the 2600 block of Maple Drive.
On March 3, investigators completed the assessment of the additional evidence, not finding anything else of evidentiary value.
Formal charges were filed against Chalfant on March 23.
According to online court records, Chalfant had an initial hearing Monday morning.
