Sammamish Man Charged With Using Cell Phone Camera For Upskirt Photos

POSTED: 10:35 AM PST December 10, 2003

SAMMAMISH, Wash. -- A man has been charged with using a cellular telephone camera to take electronic photographs up a woman's skirt.

Jack Le Vu, 20, of Sammamish, pleaded innocent Monday to a charge of voyeurism, the first case of its kind in the state's most populous county since a legislation to close a loophole in the law was enacted earlier this year.

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., said the Sammamish case is the first he has heard about that involves a camera-equipped cell phone.

Vu has been released on $25,000 bail. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted. His father said Tuesday the family had no comment.

A witness told investigators Vu pretended to scan the shelves July 10 as he followed a 26-year-old woman in a supermarket, crouched down with his cell phone extended beneath her skirt and then stood, punched a few buttons on the phone and looked at the screen.

According to documents filed by King County prosecutors, Vu told investigators he has a panty fetish and has taken similar photographs of other women, eventually transferring them onto his home computer.

Five months after the witness told her and a supermarket manager what happened in this suburb east of Seattle, the woman said she was still shaken.

Asking that her name not be used, she told a local newspaper she sensed something amiss but was concentrating on shopping and tending her baby son.

"In hindsight, I never turned around," she said. "It's the last thing you expect to happen in any public place."

The law under which Vu was charged was enacted after the state Supreme Court ruled that a man could not be prosecuted for using a video camera to film up a woman's dress at the Bite of Seattle food festival because they were in a public place.

He's french-oriental [:D]