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Judges uphold conviction for man who hid video camera in woman's bathroom
JESSICA SHAMBAUGH
Special to the Legal News
Published: September 26, 2014
The 5th District Court of Appeals recently released an opinion affirming a man’s convictions after he hid a video camera in a woman’s bathroom and recorded her 11-year-old daughter in the shower.
Paul Bracone Jr. appealed his conviction and sentence from the Tuscarawas County Court of Common Pleas arguing that his convictions were against the manifest weight of the evidence and he was prejudiced by several procedural errors.
Bracone’s alleged offenses first came to light in March 2011, when his daughter, Emily, was at his home.
Emily was looking for a video she needed for school on Bracone’s laptop when she saw a thumbnail picture of a woman with a tattoo on her upper thigh.
She noted that the tattoo looked identical to her mother’s tattoo and that the thumbnail appeared to be a video taken in her mother’s apartment, which she rented from Bracone.
Emily immediately contacted her mother, Beth Evans, and told her they needed to talk.
She then went to her mother’s apartment, searched the place and found a small camera hidden behind a panel in the vanity. The camera was pointed at the shower.
Upon her discovery, Evans contacted the Dennison Police Department and an officer removed the camera and obtained a search warrant for Bracone’s home with permission to seize his desktop computer, laptop computer and various items of pornography.
During questioning, Bracone admitted setting up the video camera but said he did so to obtain audio evidence of cocaine usage.
He also admitted that he knew Evans’ young daughter showered in that bathroom and acknowledged seeing video of Evans taken with the camera.
Bracone denied having any child pornography and insisted that he deleted any videos of nudity taken with the camera.
Eventually, he admitted to conducting a marijuana grow operation in an area behind Evans’ apartment and consented to a search of that location.
That search revealed an elaborate growing operation with separate rooms for plants in various stages of growth, hydroponic watering power converter systems, reflective wall coverings and grow lights.
Bracone’s laptops were analyzed by authorities.
Joann Gibb, a computer forensic specialist found 106 items indicative of child pornography on Bracone’s desktop, including files with names including the phrases “pedo” and “young girl.”
Gibb also found 132 videos involving nudity on Bracone’s laptop.
Of those videos, 22 involved a young child in a shower and focus on her genitalia and her buttocks.
Evans was able to identify that young child as being her 11-year-old daughter.
Jennifer Acurio, a drug chemistry forensic scientist found that the plants discovered on Bracone’s property were marijuana and weighed 1,950 grams.
Based on that evidence, Bracone was charged with several counts of pandering obscenity involving a minor, illegal use of a minor in nudity oriented material, voyeurism, cultivation of marijuana and possession of marijuana.
A jury found him guilty of the minor-related charges and the drug charges but was deadlocked on the counts involving voyeurism.
The trial court then discharged the jury and set the matter for sentencing, where the state dismissed the voyeurism charges.
The common pleas court sentenced Bracone to a total of four years in prison and three years of community control. He then appealed his convictions to the 5th District.
Upon review of the evidence, the three-judge appellate panel quickly overruled Bracone’s challenge of the weight of the evidence.
They determined that each of his four convictions was properly supported by evidence found on his property and his own concessions to police.
“Upon review, we find the testimony and exhibits support the findings of guilty on all counts, and find no manifest miscarriage of justice,” Judge John Wise wrote for the court.
The judges then addressed Bracone’s claim that the trial court improperly permitted evidence that he possessed legal pornography.
They agreed that the evidence may have only been marginally relevant, but held that it did not prejudice his case.
“The voluminous evidence of the videos and photographs found on appellant’s computers, combined with the testimony of Beth Evans and appellant himself, established appellant’s guilt. The introduction of the other pornographic material was inconsequential to appellant’s conviction,” Judge Wise stated.
The judges also upheld the trial court’s decision to label comments from Gibb and Acurio as expert testimony as they had both been properly educated in their field.
Presiding Judge William Hoffman and Judge Sheila Farmer joined Judge Wise in overruling each of Bracone’s assignments of error and affirming the lower court’s judgment.
The case is cited State v. Bracone, 2014-Ohio-4058.
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