Spy camera found in restaurant restroom
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A tiny camera hidden above a women's toilet in a Edmonds pizza parlor could be either a case of video voyeurism or internal intrigue within the restaurant's management, police said.
Police learned about the camera at Romeo's Pizzeria Restaurant on Thursday, the day after a Seattle television-news crew ran a segment about it, said Edmonds police Detective Don Kinney. It wasn't clear how long the camera had been in place, he said.
KIRO-TV received a tip about the restroom surveillance, and a television crew found and removed it Wednesday, Kinney said. The camera lens, about the size of a pencil eraser, had apparently been positioned above a small hole punched into a ventilation grate.
Bill Loukas, who helps run the restaurant owned by his father, said he hadn't known about the camera installed above one of two women's stalls at the restaurant, in the 21100 block of 76th Avenue West. Neither he nor the restaurant's manager was present when the television crew shot its footage, he said.
Loukas said he had installed about a dozen other surveillance cameras all over the restaurant because of a continuing theft problem involving former employees and managers. Images captured by those cameras were viewed on three monitors in the restaurant's office, Loukas said.
He believes he was set up by disgruntled former employees or somebody involved with his divorce proceedings, Kinney said.
The police investigation could be difficult, however, because the camera was removed before officers arrived. "Police wish they could have seen it in operation, but police saw nothing," Kinney said.
Loukas and Seattle attorney Chris Benis, who represents the restaurant's owners, both expressed dismay that KIRO may have destroyed evidence by pulling down the camera before police were notified.
"After they did that there was no way to tell what it looked like, what was there. Everybody touched it; they can't take fingerprints," Loukas said.
Helen Swenson, KIRO-TV's news director, yesterday said the news crew had to take apart the vent to confirm the camera's existence.
"It's not like it looked like a camera," she said. "We actually had to take it out to see what it was."
Kinney said all that remained of the camera set-up when police arrived was about 50 to 75 feet of cable that apparently had connected the camera with the monitors.
Even if police determined the camera was installed to spy upon women using the restroom, authorities might not be able to prosecute the case.
The state's 1998 voyeurism law, passed after a Kingdome electrician was arrested for planting a camera in the Seahawks SeaGals changing room, requires proof that the camera was installed "for the purpose of arousing or gratifying the sexual desire of any person."
"We would look at it and then we would send it up to the (Snohomish County) Prosecutor's Office and try to figure it out," said acting Edmonds Police Chief Greg Wean.
Diane Brooks can be reached at 206-464-2567 or dbrooks@seattletimes.com.