SURVEILLANCE CAMERA: Police reports detail obscenity investigation

Nov. 26—TRAVERSE CITY — An investigation into an obscenity complaint against Edward Witkowski started with a photo of a surveillance camera hidden in the electrical outlet of the women's restroom at his coffee shop downtown.

Witkowski, 49, who has been released on bond, awaits arraignment at 10:10 a.m. Wednesday via Grand Traverse County 86th District Court Magistrate Tammi Rodgers' YouTube channel.

The Traverse City businessman is facing five felony counts — three counts of capturing/distributing an image of an unclothed person, as well as charges of using a computer to commit a crime and lying to a police officer.

In the account of their investigation, Traverse City Police were able to document Witkowski's purchase of a surveillance camera on eBay to its delivery to him via UPS to the recovery of three videos on his cellphone.

The videos were of three individual females partially to fully unclothed in a bathroom that resembles the one in his coffee shop, Morsels, police said.

Police reports to the Grand Traverse County Prosecutor's Office, obtained by the Record-Eagle through a Freedom of Information Act request, detail the investigation that led to searches of Witkowski's home on North Oak Street and business at 321 Front Street and his subsequent arrest.

The first report was filed Aug. 29 by an officer who went to Morsels in response to an employee who reported a "potential spy camera" installed in the ground plug of an outlet in the women's bathroom in the coffee shop.

The bathroom is described in the police report as a "single stall with one toilet and one sink." The electrical outlet is next to the sink, facing the toilet.

When a female employee who was washing her hands at the sink noticed what appeared to be a camera or lens of a camera in the bottom hole of the outlet, she took a picture of it and told a coworker about it. They placed tape over the outlet — then the lights in the bathroom stopped working, they told detectives.

"The suspect is the owner of the business and has been acting differently since the girls covered up the camera," the police report stated. "Edward then used the opportunity to go in the bathroom to get the lights working again and, at the same time, had replaced the suspicious outlet with a normal looking GFI outlet."

In an interview with one of the female employees, detectives said that "she and her co-workers thought that it was ironic that the lights in the bathroom had gone out and believed this would have given Witkowski an opportunity to go in and change the outlet."

By the time police arrived for in-person interviews with the female employees, the outlet had been replaced, they said.

But the employees provided police with the photos they had taken. They also reported to police that Witkowski had called them to ask if they had taken photos of the outlet.

One of those employees was a 15-year-old girl, the other was her older sister. According to the report, neither of them work at the business now. Their mother also has been in contact with police regarding these allegations, according to the information provided by the prosecutor.

Four days after that initial report was filed, on Sept. 1, a detective learned that, after the outlet was replaced, an employee saw "what appeared to be an old electrical outlet as well as other electrical supplies sitting on a desk in [Witkowski's] office."

That same employee told the detective that the day the outlet was changed, Witkowski texted her at 3 p.m. "I've learned that the police were here today." At that point, she told police, she quit.

About a week before the first police report, Witkowski told one of the female employees that "he did not approve of the clothing that she had worn to work and told her to go change." He told her "that if she didn't have something to change into that he would give her something to change into."

The detective noted in his report that they didn't know if Witkowski wanted her to go change in the bathroom. But, the employee's mother said, "In hindsight, knowing what they know about the surveillance camera, that this makes sense now."

The mother told investigators that her daughter felt targeted at the time because other female employees were wearing the same type of clothing to work, but were never asked to change by Witkowski.

One of the photos that was provided by the employees to police showed, behind the cover plate, a black ribbon cable, thicker red wire and smaller red wire protruding from behind it. The detective was able to find the same device on eBay. It wasn't available for sale anywhere else, he wrote.

Records and a search warrant disclosed Witkowski's purchases on eBay, showing that he bought two of these outlets this past summer, one on June 29 and the second on July 23. Both were shipped to a P.O. box at the UPS store on Garfield Avenue.

Following the eBay search warrant, the Traverse City Police filed three additional search warrants: one for Morsels, one for Witkowski's residence on North Oak Street and one for the UPS store.

They were presented and authorized on Oct. 25 by Magistrate Tammi Rogers at the 86th District Court in Traverse City.

The next morning, before 7 a.m., Witkowski was pulled over by a marked city police car on South Division Street at the intersection of 11th Street.

Officers told Witkowski they had a search warrant and that they needed to take him to the police station. At that time, other officers began to search the business and his residence.

Immediately following his interview with police officers at the station, they took his iPhone to the Michigan State Police Computer Crimes Unit.

The 20 other electronic items that police recovered while searching Morsels and Witkowski's home were sent to the state police for further investigation.

Troopers noted in their report that they were able to find the three videos of different women on his cellphone. The bathroom seen in the background of those videos is "consistent" with the Morsels women's bathroom, police said.

Also, one of the women in the video appears to be a minor, under the age of 18, they wrote.

These three videos had been emailed from Witkowski's gmail to his Morsels email address, the police report indicates.

Both of those accounts were accessible to his cellphone, police said.

The employee who filed the initial police report in August said she and her coworkers wanted to pursue charges against Witkowski.

Convictions on the five counts he's currently facing could result in a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, according to state statutes.