A Florida TV news employee is under investigation for allegedly filming other employees in private settings without their consent.
Local 10 News engineer Rafael Martinez, 60, was fired last week after more than 20 years with the station.
Martinez is accused of recording videos of other employees in private settings without their consent.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office confiscated Martinez's cell phone. On it, they found several videos from under the anchor desk in the station's main studio, from the control room, and from a newsroom set called “the tower” — a raised platform used for breaking news, news updates, and to introduce stories.
After a complaint by a station employee last week, management confiscated Martinez’s phone and found the inappropriate and illegal videos.
In some videos, Martinez’s phone camera is pointed up their skirt, capturing what are often referred to as "up-skirt" images.
In other videos, his cellphone is placed in obscure locations aimed to capture private images.
Local 10′s internal camera system at the station showed Martinez planting his cellphone on the tower.
Bert Medina, president and CEO of WPLG, released a statement saying "this is an illegal action. That is why we got BSO involved immediately. It is our responsibility to report something like this. As painful as it is to have it occur in the WPLG family, it is our responsibility to get law enforcement involved.”
The Broward Sheriff’s Office will conduct a forensic investigation to see if there are more victims and if the videos were disseminated.
Police say an arrest is likely.