An attorney investigating the camera hidden in the women’s locker room at the West Virginia State Police Training Academy said she has heard from more than twenty individuals who want to know if they were secretly recorded.
“The number continues to grow,” said Teresa Toriseva on Talkline Tuesday. “The number of inquiries has especially surprised even me.”
An investigation by the Justice administration into the State Police recently revealed the existence of the camera and a thumb drive containing images from the women’s locker room. At least one female was secretly recorded, but there may have been others. Investigators say the trooper who placed the camera has died and the troopers who found the thumb drive destroyed it.
Toriseva said the women feel their privacy was invaded. “They want to know if they were taped,” she said, adding that it is questionable to think only one woman was recorded.
“From 2008 until his (the trooper who placed the camera) death in 2016, there’s a wide open period to our clients. Everyone in that time period has questions,” said Toriseva. “Did he have accomplices? Is he just being blamed because he’s now deceased? There are more questions than answers.”
Colonel J.C. Chambers, who Governor Justice appointed as Superintendent of the State Police following the forced resignation of Jan Cahill, has publicly acknowledged the voyeurism and pledged to help heal the wounds.
“I join Governor Justice in sharing my deepest apologies to any female who was victimized by the hidden camera in the State Police Training Academy locker room,” Chambers wrote. “As part of the investigation, we are developing a timeline and working to identify all potential victims of this crime. All victims will be offered counseling and therapy services and we will also coordinate follow-up services.”
Toriseva suspects the thumb drive may not be the only record. “The evidence that was destroyed is likely not all the evidence,” she said. “Electronic evidence has a way of being in a lot of different places and having been shared.”
Meanwhile, she is preparing a lawsuit against the state on behalf of the women where they will ask for monetary damages. Toriseva believes the women have a strong case, even if all the physical evidence is destroyed, because of the legal concept of adverse inference.
Under that principle, a judge could instruct the jury that missing or destroyed evidence would have been unfavorable to the defendants, in this case the State Police.
But we are a long way from that. Right now, a growing number of female city, county and state police officers who trained at the academy just want to know if their privacy was violated at a place where they should have been most secure.