Crime & Safety
Sex Offender's Dressing Room Cam Was Easy to Find, Discoverer Says
Lu Berry says man did not go to any lengths to hide video camera he placed in changing area for swimsuit models.
The man who put a video camera in a dressing room during a swimsuit fashion show in Southampton Village did a terrible job of hiding it, according to the designer behind the show.
Lu Berry, a Southampton resident, put on the runway show of her 2012 swimwear line on July 12 at 230 Elm during The Independent newspaper's "Off The Record Wine & Dine Event." She said Friday that her intern pointed out the camera, which was conspicuously placed in the corner of the female models' dressing room.
"It was very obvious," Berry said. She turned off the camera and brought it home, and when she played back the video she saw a man she recognized from earlier that night who had introduced himself as an artist and photographer, she said.
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"The first thing he started showing me was naked pictures of girls," Berry said of his introduction.
The man, 51-year-old Mastic Beach resident and level-two sex offender Robert L. Liguori, was arrested at his home Tuesday and charged with multiple felony counts of unlawful surveillance.
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Berry said Liguori was at the event shooting photographs of models on the runway, and at some point he entered the dressing room — a private curtained area with no door — and set up the camera. He could clearly be seen on the video recording, maneuvering the camera, she said. "He just made it way too easy."
Berry said she gave the recording to police a week later, and an investigation ensued.
According to the New York State Sex Offender Registry, Liguori, of 2 Whittier Dr in Mastic Beach, was convicted in 2000 of disseminating indecent materials to a minor after being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He also uses the name Leonardo Liguori, the registry states.
Liguori was recently arrested by Suffolk County police as well, and charged with stalking in the third degree, a misdemeanor, on Sept. 7.
Southampton Village detectives executed a search warrant at Liguori's home Tuesday, confiscating photos and videos, and more charges are expected, Det. Sgt. Herman Lamison said.
