Community Corner
More Charges, Bail Raised for Hidden Camera Suspect
Level-two sex offender Robert Liguori now faces eight felony counts of unlawful surveillance after authorities say he recorded swimsuit models in a dressing room.
Three additional counts of unlawful surveillance have been leveled against a Mastic Beach man already jailed on charges of surreptitiously placing a video camera in the models' changing area during a swimsuit fashion show in Southampton Village.
According to authorities, 51-year-old Robert Liguori, a level-two sex offender, identified himself as an artist/photographer at the July 12 fashion show, and at some point during the event he slipped into the changing area to hide the digital video camera. However, authorities said, an intern for the fashion designer discovered the camera, and the designer turned the video over to police.
Southampton Village police arrested Liguori at his home Sept. 18 and executed a search warrant, seizing videos and photographs.
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On Sept. 28 in Suffolk County Criminal Court in Riverside, he was indicted with five felony counts of unlawful surveillance and ordered held in lieu of $25,000 cash bail or $75,000 bond.
A grand jury then offered up a new indictment, which was unsealed Oct. 5 by Judge Barbara Kahn. The new eight-count indictment supersedes the previous one. He pleaded not guilty Wednesday and was ordered held on $30,000 cash bail or $80,000 bond.
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He is due back in the Riverside courtroom Nov. 8 for a conference date, and he has a second court appearance scheduled that day, at Suffolk First District Court in Central Islip, on an unrelated felony stalking charge.
The stalking charge arose when Liguori was arrested Sept. 7 for an incident in Center Moriches, in which Suffolk police said he exposed himself to a woman working at a clothing store. According to the arrest report, he returned to the store two more times that day, "placing the victim in fear of the commission of a sex offense against her ..."
The district attorney's office said Liguori became a registered sex offender after he was arrested in 1998 and convicted in 2000 of trafficking in child pornography, transmitting child pornography and transporting child pornography interstate. He was discharged from federal probation in 2007, according to the DA's office.
