Worker hides phone under bathroom sink to record coffee shop customers, Florida cops say

A coffee shop employee hid a cellphone under the shop’s bathroom sink to secretly record customers using the restroom, according to Florida police.

A man noticed the phone recording him in the bathroom of the Tarpon Springs coffee shop just after 5:30 p.m. on March 11, according to an arrest affidavit signed by Tarpon Springs police and provided to McClatchy News by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. The phone was under the sink facing the toilet.

The man took the phone and confronted the owners of the shop with it, the affidavit says.

WFLA identified the man accused of setting up the phone as an employee of the coffee shop We Spy Coffee & More.

A message McClatchy News left at We Spy Coffee & More on March 13 was not returned.

The employee, who is 31, told the man to delete the video and grabbed him by the shirt in an attempt to take the phone, according to the affidavit.

When deputies arrived, the employee told them that he put his phone in the bathroom to “record men he found attractive,” the affidavit says. He told them that he’d recorded at least 10 people in the bathroom, according to police.

Authorities arrested him just after 6:40 p.m. on March 11, the affidavit says. He faces one count of video voyeurism and one count of simple battery/, and his bond was set at $5,500, according to police. .

Tarpon Springs police detectives are asking anyone who visited We Spy Coffee & More and used the men’s bathroom after Feb. 13 a to call them at 727-938-2849, according to Fox 13 News.

Tarpon Springs is about 30 miles northwest of Tampa.

This story was originally published March 14, 2023 at 10:39 AM with the headline "Worker hides phone under bathroom sink to record coffee shop customers, Florida cops say."