Laura Figueroa reports:
The ad on roommates.com posted by a user with the screen name “Buttercup” described a furnished bedroom for rent with a DVD/VCR in a quiet Davie neighborhood.
“Buttercup” turned out to be IRS agent Kenneth Ryals, 60, and a female tenant would eventually discover, the DVD/VCR player in the room hid a small video camera pointed at her bed.
Ryals was recently ordered by a Broward County jury to pay $476,000 in damages to his former tenant, Miranda Goldston, 27, who sued him for invasion of privacy.
[…]
Ryals confessed to police he had installed the surveillance equipment, but misdemeanor criminal charges were dropped.
Read the full story in the Miami Herald.
It’s not clear why criminal misdemeanor charges were dropped (see Florida’s video voyeurism law for their statute). If anyone knows why the prosecutor dropped the charges, please let me know.
Thanks to @pporlock for pointing me to this story and Florida law.