CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Legal action is being brought against the West Virginia State Police after a hidden camera was placed in the women’s locker room of the State Police Academy in Institute.
Wheeling attorney Teresa Toriseva said on Tuesday’s MetroNews “Talkline” she’s representing “dozens” of women who claim they were recorded without their knowledge.
“The number continues to grow. The number of inquiries has especially surprised even me,” she said.
The video recordings were part of a number of allegations revealed last month as part of ongoing investigations into misconduct at the State Police.
According to the investigation, the person who placed the camera in the locker room has since died. The investigation also revealed a thumb drive that included images from the women’s locker room was located and destroyed.
Toriseva said she’s convinced that’s not the only piece of evidence that can prove her case.
“The evidence that was destroyed is likely not all the evidence. Electronic evidence has a way of being in a lot of different places and having been shared,” she said.
Not only do the women feel the act was an invasion of privacy, they want to know why they were being recorded, Toriseva said.
“They want to know if they were taped and if they were there during the time period that they believe, now given the public investigation and admissions, that they very well could have been,” she said.
Toriseva said there’s also no proof that this misconduct was limited to one person being recorded in the shower.
Teresa Toriseva, Attorney, will be representing dozens of women that are bringing legal action against the State Police over the hidden camera in the women’s locker room at the State Police training facility at Institute. Teresa discusses this with @HoppyKercheval. pic.twitter.com/EXje4svw9n
— MetroNews (@WVMetroNews) April 4, 2023
Last week, Interim State Police Superintendent Col. Jack Chambers issued a written apology to women who might have used the training academy locker room.
The video recording device was placed in the locker room in 2015. Toriseva said most women who have used the locker room since then, and even before then, now have questions. She said the person who placed the camera in the locker room started with State Police in 2008.
“From 2008 until his death in 2016, there’s a wide open period to our clients. Everyone in the time period has questions,” Toriseva said. “Even woman from 2016-2020 want to know was the camera still there? Did he have accomplices? Is he just being blamed because he’s now deceased? There’s more questions than answers.”
Former State Police Superintendent Jan Cahill resigned last month and told MetroNews he was made out to be a scapegoat. Cahill had been superintendent since the Justice administration took office in 2017.
Gov. Jim Justice previously called the revelation of the surveillance video “intolerable.”
“You know, wouldn’t you absolutely think that a women’s locker room ought to be a safe place, an absolute safe place?” the governor said last month. “We’ve got law enforcement officers destroying evidence. You can’t make it up.”
Justice has said he wants investigators to continue examining the situation with the video recordings and other allegations involving a trooper in a casino theft, and a death along Interstate 81 involving troopers in Berkeley County.
Toriseva said she is also representing State Police employees who claim they were sexually harassed on the job. She said those allegations are part of the lawsuit.
“We have received a number of allegations about harassment and propositioning for sex,” Toriseva said.
In a separate case, a woman’s lawyer said she intends to sue over allegations that she was drugged, kidnapped and raped by a trooper in Dec. 2021.
Meanwhile, changes have already been made to State Police personnel since Chambers took over as superintendent. Jim Mitchell has been promoted to a chief of staff.
Chambers has not commented on the lawsuit filed by Toriseva. There could be discussion at the Justice administration’s next media briefing set for 11 a.m. Wednesday.