Home News Sports Opinion Business A & E Lifestyle Community Features Marketplace Classifieds Autos Jobs Homes
Archives
Local

Police: Barclay secretly videotaped “100 to 500” sexual encounters with hidden camera network

Former commissioner's attorney: Footage shows rape charge unfounded

Print
Share
  • Email to a friend
  • Add This
Feeds
Article Rating
Current Rating: (
5
/5)

Low High

(Rated
2
times)

“It is clear in my client’s private life he has made an error of judgment. What is striking is this very same lack of judgment exonerates him from a rape allegation that wasn’t going anywhere.”



— Matthew Gover



attorney for Bruce Barclay



—

“My opinion of Bruce has not changed. I still think the community will respect him at the end of the day.”



— Gene Hertzler



Barclay's neighbor



By staff reports, April 9, 2008

Last updated: Wednesday, April 9, 2008 12:29 PM EDT

State police say former Cumberland County commissioner Bruce Barclay videotaped hundreds of sexual encounters — many with male escorts — using cameras hidden throughout his Monroe Township home.

Police say the sexual encounters were videotaped without the knowledge of the participants, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed Tuesday with Magisterial District Judge Susan Day. Court documents say cameras were installed in January of 2007.

Investigators are searching items seized from Barclay's residence a second time in relation to a rape investigation.

Reading a prepared statement, Barclay's attorney, Matthew Gover, said although he and Barclay do not agree with everything in the affidavit, “It is clear in my client’s private life he has made an error of judgment. What is striking is this very same lack of judgment exonerates him from a rape allegation that wasn’t going anywhere.”

Gover emphasized the Barclay’s misjudgment never extended into his role as a county commissioner, which he said Barclay “always handled with honor.”

Neighbors react

Nobody answered the door at Barclay’s residence early today.

When informed of the new allegations, Gene Hertzler, a neighbor of Barclay’s, said he still stands behind the former county commissioner.

“My opinion of Bruce has not changed,” said Hertzler, who lives at 262 Brindle Road in Monroe Township.

He had been inside Barclay’s house several times, for Christmas and Superbowl parties.

The other side of the story, he thinks, has not come out.

“I still think the community will respect him at the end of the day.”

‘Hiring of prostitutes’

According to court documents, Trooper Bryan R. Henneman said he “received information prior to the search warrant that Barclay had been involved in the hiring of prostitutes.”

During a subsequent interview, Henneman said Barclay admitted to hiring prostitutes on a weekly basis at his residence in Monroe Twp.”

The affidavit describes several such encounters with an Internet escort service known as “harrisburgfratboys.com.” Court documents indicate Barclay twice flew a 19-year-old man referred to as “W.M.” to his West Palm Beach home. During a trip last month, “W.M” told investigators that Barclay flew a male prostitute from Binghamton, N.Y., and paid that man $1,500.

Hidden camera network

The affidavit describes a hidden camera network that included cameras hidden in a bathroom, bedrooms and “indoor recreational areas.” Cameras were hidden inside AM/FM radios, motion detectors and intercom speaker systems, court documents say.

During an interview with Barclay, Henneman said he “admitted to using the cameras to record sexual encounters.” Police say Barclay saved between 100 and 500 encounters on his computer system.

According to court documents “Barclay stated that no one else was aware of the hidden cameras and also that no one else was aware that the sexual encounters were videotaped or gave him permission to videotape the encounters.”

Business camera

Henneman said Barclay also admitted to having a camera installed at his business along the 500 block of North York Street in Mechanicsburg. According to court documents, Barclay told Henneman that one sexual encounter was filmed on that camera, which also fed into his home computer network.

Barclay told Henneman that “at least” five additional males were filmed having sex “who were unaware that they were being filmed.”

Police seeking help

Barclay is the focus of the investigation, according to court documents.

Trooper Karl Schmidhamer said the state police are asking anyone who “feels they may have been a victim” of illegal acts inside Barclay’s home to call 1-866-898-8477. No charges have been filed against Barclay, he stressed.

The search warrant was obtained from Day’s office. The warrant has not been sealed and police say “it contains probable cause to further an investigation into invasion of privacy and prostitution.”

Barclay resigned April 2 after his home was searched upon the news of allegations of a March 30 rape at his home.

Videotaping and the law



Laws involving videotaping individuals without their knowledge can differ based on a number of circumstances that may be involved in a particular instance.



According to Cumberland District Attorney David Freed, a major distinction between what is considered a felony and what is considered a misdemeanor is whether or not the footage contains sound.



“The distinction is made with the interception of oral communication and video,” Freed said. “If it does contain sound, it is a wire tap violation, and that is considered a felony of the third degree. If it is just video, it is considered a third-degree misdemeanor if there is only one violation or a second-degree misdemeanor if there is more than one, and there’s usually more than one.”



Second-degree misdemeanors have a maximum sentence of two years for each violation.



Among violations involving only video, there is also another distinction between filming a public act and a private act.



If a person is filmed walking down the street, there is no violation, according to Freed. That, however, does not include “upskirting,” where people film underneath the skirts of women walking in a public area.



“It was sort of a new thing, and there wasn’t a law for it before,” Freed said. “There was a case in Cumberland County that changed that law in 2005, to take effect in January 2006. There was a man who was filming women at the Capital City Mall, but the charges were dropped, and the woman wasn’t happy with that result. We got that law changed.”



The law now includes a section prohibiting the videotaping of intimate body parts, even if they are covered.



For violations involving a private area, such as a home, it is not illegal to own security cameras or to tape those visiting the household without notifying them of the cameras.



What does make the security camera footage illegal is when what is being filmed is sexual in nature, according to Freed.



The Invasion of Privacy law states that a person commits an offense when filming someone without his/her knowledge and using the videotapes or photography for sexual gratification, recording a person in full or partial nudity or filming someone who has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Taping sexual acts without consent would also fall into this category as a violation of privacy.



— Naomi Creason, The Sentinel