Lynnwood man accused of hiding cameras in Expedia bathrooms
Jabez Perez was shocked to learn that the neighbor who lives directly across from his Lynnwood apartment is now facing four charges of felony voyeurism.
“Jesus. That’s insane,” Perez said.
His neighbor, Marcelo Vargas-Fernandez, was arrested on Feb. 1 by Seattle police at his apartment. Perez said he and his girlfriend were woken up by shouting and saw police waiting outside of Vergas-Fernandez’s door.
According to court documents, Vargas-Fernandez allegedly installed hidden cameras in two bathrooms of Expedia Group’s Seattle campus.
“That’s actually pretty surprising because we’re just wondering what he could have done, it’s crazy,” Perez said.
Court documents said one of the victims found the cameras back in December. That victim reported it to security but they didn’t remove the devices because they thought they were a music device or a battery backup for the soap dispensers.
Seattle police responded and a detective was assigned to the case. That detective was able to figure out the cameras were purchased from Amazon and obtained a search warrant to see all of the purchases of that device or similar ones in the state of Washington.
“That information we received from police for that warrant was important to get to the court, we wanted to make sure the court saw that information and having that was a key to being able to file these four counts of voyeurism in the first-degree,” Casey McNerthney, from the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, said.
Court documents say the cameras reappeared in the bathrooms on Jan. 11 and SPD responded, taking the devices and booking them into evidence. Security footage from Expedia shows Mercelo Vargas-Fernandez, who was then an employee, entering and exiting the bathrooms with what appears to be the same device that was taped under the sinks. Detectives were then able to link his purchases of the devices from Amazon to his address.
“To have someone across from us too like it was pretty crazy,” Perez said.
Police executed a search warrant of Vargas-Fernandez’s apartment and arrested him. During that time, police seized 33 spy cameras, 22 SD cards, and six hard drives from his apartment.
Expedia told KIRO 7 in a statement: “We are committed to protecting the privacy, safety, and security of our employees and guests at our offices. Although we do not typically provide comment on internal situations, we felt necessary to share an update on the matter. We took immediate action the moment we discovered the issue and contacted local law enforcement to assist. In addition, the employee is no longer employed by Expedia Group. We continue to take this matter very seriously and are working closely with the appropriate authorities.”
Court documents say Vargas-Fernandez told detectives he wasn’t involved with the Expedia Campus bathrooms. However, he admitted to using spy cameras to surveil his ex-wife while they went through their divorce and also recorded interactions of him and his four-year-old daughter to show he was not doing anything to her.
“Whenever you see a case with multiple cameras that’s a big priority because typically the potential for that is much more and we want to get that information before the court,” McNerthney said.
Vargas-Fernandez is set to be arraigned on February 15th at 8:30 a.m.
