Hundreds may be on film from restroom cameras
Police will not reach out to identify more than the 40 women they have confirmed as having been filmed in restrooms at and near the University of Delaware over a two-year period.
While hundreds of women were illicitly recorded, the state attorney general's office believes it now has enough evidence to successfully prosecute the suspect, UD's executive director of campus and public safety, Skip Homiak, said Saturday.
Homiak said the suspect, former doctoral candidate Javier Mendiola-Soto, has told UD Police he downloaded 1,500 separate videos taken of women using miniature cameras he hid in sanitary napkin dispensers in bathroom stalls on and around campus. But with some of the women having been recorded "three or four times," Homiak said, "hundreds" of victims would be an accurate estimate.
Mendiola-Soto, 38, is being held at Young Correctional Institution in Wilmington on a $42,000 secured bond; federal immigration authorities have added a detainer that would keep him jailed even if he could make the cash bond, Homiak said.
Once the case is adjudicated and any sentence served, he said, the "likely outcome" for Mendiola-Soto is deportation back to his home country of Mexico.
Mendiola-Soto has been expelled from the university, Homiak added.
Homiak said it's understood that some of the victims – all of whom have been offered counseling – might be reticent to appear in court.
"We're hoping that, in fact, if they're needed to testify, they will," he said. "We do understand that they've been traumatized. Everything that we are doing at the university is with the utmost sensitivity to the victims. And that's our main concern at the moment."
While officials won't attempt additional identifications for prosecution purposes, they will allow women who believe they were filmed and want to confirm it to do so.
"Anybody who thinks they may have been a victim of this, they can call us on the hotline and speak with an investigator," Homiak said. "And if that person wishes, we can compare her known photo with an image that we have taken from the videos."
To speed the process and add an additional layer of privacy, those images are screenshots of just faces that have been placed in digital folders arranged by location and date, he said.
Homiak said Mendiola-Soto used just two cameras and moved them over a period stretching from May 2012 through June 2014 amongst restrooms in five locations: the Hugh Morris Library, Memorial Hall, the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Laboratory, Willard Hall Education Building and a staff-only restroom at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute in the Delaware Technology Park. A woman in the latter location spotted a hidden camera and reported it June 27, Homiak said.
"Very quickly, the investigation led to the arrest of the defendant after we spoke to witnesses, and other investigative means," Homiak said. Mendiola-Soto, who was arrested July 1, took classes in that building, he said.
The cameras were at times also mounted in at least two other locations, Homiak said: the Goodwill Store on Main Street in Newark, and a bathroom at his Newark residence. Homiak said Mendiola-Soto's roommates included women.
On campus, Homiak said, police have searched every restroom – including men's rooms – and locker room. Nothing else was found, he said.
Homiak said it's unknown how Mendiola-Soto managed to slip in and out of women's restrooms – none of which are accessible 24 hours a day – over a two-year period, apparently without getting seen.
"That's a good question," Homiak said. "We don't know the answer to that. The cameras had to physically be removed and downloaded each time he placed them in the bathroom."
Homiak said Mendiola-Soto does not appear to have had an accomplice. "There's nothing at all to indicate that he acted anything other than solo on this," he said.
A forensic examination by the Middletown Police Department has concluded that none of the videos were electronically shared, Homiak said.
Contact William H. McMichael at (302) 324-2812 or bmcmichael@delawareonline.com. On Twitter: @billmcmichael
Contacting UD Police
Anyone who wants to see if they are on the seized videos can use the UD police hotline at (302) 831-4800; callers can arrange to review the images with a female detective. UDPrivacy@udel.edu is another option. Anyone with information on suspicious activity is asked to contact UD police at (302) 831-2222.