ALBANY – A man who videotaped his neighbor as she emerged from the shower in her own bathroom violated the woman’s expectation of privacy, according to the state Court of Appeals, which said that the Legislature did not intend for the term “surreptitious” in the state’s Penal Law to be too narrowly defined.
In upholding David Schreier’s conviction for second-degree unlawful surveillance, a unanimous court rejected Schreier’s argument that although the woman did not know she was being taped, he was positioned in a public place when he filmed her through a window in her front door and did not do so “surreptitiously,” as Penal Law §250.45[1] prohibits.
