This is becoming a more common crime in Los Angeles, and I'm seeing it prosecuted in the local courthouses. People are taking small video cameras and filming people in dressing rooms and other locations.

Even peeping-tom-type activity where they're filming them in their own home or filming them in the person's home when the person goes to the bathroom or when they have sex with the other party and they don't tell them about the filming.

If it comes to light that somebody is filing somebody, catching private parts, or sexual activity, then that can be prosecuted in Los Angeles.  In fact, it's prosecuted all the time.

California Sex Offender Registration

You really have to be careful with some of these crimes. Because even though a lot of them are misdemeanors and someone's peeping on another person or illegally videotaping someone for sexual purposes, you could still end up having to register as a sex offender depending on what Penal Code Section you end up having to plead no guilty or no-contest to.

There is a wide range of statutory criminal laws that describe this type of unlawful activity in California.

So, if you're charged with some sort of a sexual offense involving using video of another person or whether you're allegedly taping them in a bathroom,  you need to consult with a lawyer.

I've seen many cases where people are setting up a phone in the bathroom, hiding it, turning it on, and then when they go in and out of there, they're being videoed. Then, someone finds the phone and ends up contacting law enforcement.

The authorities come and figure out whose phone it is and figure out who's been doing the taping, and that person either gets arrested or cited in court.  A lot of times, they don't think it's very serious until they realize that they're registering as a sex offender.

It could last ten, twenty, or even life with the new 3-tier system that's just going to be coming out within the next year or so. Still, even though that does help those individuals who are charged with sex crimes as far as registering pursuant to Penal Code Section 290, it's a long time and very invasive.

If you end up getting convicted for a sex-related offense, you have to register as a sex offender for a significant part of your life, whether it be the rest of your life or twenty years, for example.

Defenses for Illegal Videotaping

What I suggest you do is sometimes some of this videotaping is consensual.  Sometimes, it involves adults and not anyone who's a minor, and sometimes, it might even be accidentally videotaped.

So, there are all sorts of defenses that can be employed if you're charged with videotaping someone for sexual purposes.  It just depends on what the circumstances are and what the other person has said to the police.

What evidence does the police have, and what evidence does the police have that you're actually the one who did the video recording?  So, it's never a good idea to state these types of matters.  You obviously want to go to an attorney.

Let the attorney do the talking for you; act as a buffer between you and the police so that you don't end up admitting something, and make it easy for the police to prove the crime of videotaping another person for sexual purposes.