A Lake Station man is facing multiple charges for secretly recording two girls in his bathroom.
Frederick Allen Orth is charged with both Level 4 and Level 5 felony child exploitation, and voyeurism using a camera, a Level 6 felony.
At 1:24 a.m. on April 23, police were sent to the 3200 block of Thoreau Drive in Portage in regards to a child pornography call, according to the probable cause affidavit. A woman had called police after she found a cell phone in a bathroom vent that contained recordings of her and her two children showering at a Lake Station residence.
She told police that she was drying her hair at the Lake Station house when she looked up and saw what she thought was a camera in the bathroom vent above her, records state. She immediately asked two acquaintances to confirm what she was looking at. One of the friends took a Samsung cellphone out of the ceiling, court records state. The home screen had a picture of Orth and the two acquaintances, and the phone was in recording mode when it was found.
A witness knew the password and the phone contained multiple videos of her 11- and 13-year-old daughters in the bathroom, including in the shower, the affidavit states.
The woman left the house with her daughters and then called police. In the videos, Orth was observed coming back in the bathroom to retrieve the phone after the children were out of the bathroom, records state.
When confronted by one of the witnesses about the camera phone being in the ceiling, Orth denied it was his, even though he had been seen in the video. Orth walked away and later talked to the woman trying to claim it was a misunderstanding as he was trying to record his son and friend drinking, court records state.
The woman confronted Orth’s wife about the videos, but she declined to talk to him about it and walked away. She talked to her daughters, who had spent time with Orth, and one shut down while the other became angry, the affidavit states. When asked if he had ever made them feel uncomfortable, one described him as weird and awkward while the older girl put her head down and said, “No.”
Orth was previously charged with child molestation in 1998, but in October, the case was declared a mistrial, records state.
In one of the videos, Orth is observed taking another cellphone out of a heater under the sink, but police didn’t find the second phone when they served a search warrant at the Lake Station house in May.
A witness said Orth would often make comments to one of the girls about needing to shower, court records state.
In late May, Orth was contacted about providing a statement to police, but he said he would get back to them after speaking to his attorney, who subsequently advised him to refrain from making any comments.