Landlord charged with video voyeurism after camera found in Martin County child's bedroom
MARTIN COUNTY — A landlord was arrested after sheriff's investigators said they found photos of a nude 12-year-old girl on his phone and cameras they said he hid in the electric outlets of her bedroom.
Bruce Wayne Grady, 62, faces two felony charges of video voyeurism by a person 24 years of age or older on a child less than 16 years of age.
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Here's what happened according to an arrest affidavit and incident report from the Martin County Sheriff's Office:
The girl and a family member became suspicious of Grady after they discovered him doing electrical work in their residence without prior notice on Sept. 12.
The three live in a duplex with Grady on one end and the family on the other. The family rents their side of the duplex from Grady.
A few weeks after Grady was done with the work, the child tried plugging her laptop into the outlet in her bedroom.
She couldn't plug the charger in and saw a red reflection from one of the holes in the outlets. She downloaded an application that scans for hidden cameras.
The application said the home had unknown cameras in it. The girl and her mother reported it to the Martin County Sheriff's Office. A sheriff's deputy arrived in the home and found the outlet in the girl's bathroom faced her shower.
Removing the three pronged outlet from the wall, the deputy found a black box attached to the back of the plug.
The box had a sim card attached to it and a camera.
The deputy also discovered a camera hidden in the outlet of the child's bedroom.
A Special Victims Unit detective with Martin County Sheriff's Office found the black box with a camera lens and slot for a micro-SD card was hot-glued to the outlet.
Investigators spoke with Grady after finding the cameras and he initially denied putting them there.
The landlord then allowed investigators to look through his phone and after searching through his files found videos of the girl in her bathing suit using the pool in the backyard, and a secure folder.
Grady gave the password to the secure folder and in the trash of the folder, investigators found nude photos of the girl in the bathroom.
After the discovery of the photos, Grady told the deputies he installed the two cameras found in the bathroom and bedroom.
He said he would use an app to capture photos and videos of the child. He also had photos of the girl's underwear in the phone's trash bin.
Investigators wrote in the arrest affidavit Grady installed cameras in the girl's bathroom and bedroom where "she had reasonable belief that she could fully disrobe in privacy."
Grady was arrested and taken into custody at Martin County Jail where he bailed out on a $100,000 bond Oct. 1.
Mauricio La Plante is a breaking news reporter for TCPalm focusing on Martin County. Follow him on Twitter @mslaplantenews or email him at Mauricio.LaPlante@tcpalm.com.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Martin County sheriff's investigators say landlord placed cameras in child's room