Privacy violation suspect qualifies for public defender

A Cedar Hill, Mo., man accused of making surreptitious videos in a women's restroom was found indigent Monday in Cape Girardeau County Circuit Court.

Appearing in court via a video link to the Cape Girardeau County Jail, Frank F. Fuchs, 52, told Associate Judge Gary Kamp he understood the charge against him and was found to qualify for a public defender.

Kamp continued the case and told Fuchs he would be assigned a public defender.

Fuchs was charged with invasion of privacy, a Class D felony, after being arrested Aug. 5 at the Silver Springs Office Complex, 351 S. Silver Springs Road.

According to a probable-cause statement filed by patrolman Cary Dunavan of the Cape Girardeau Police Department, a female soldier from the U.S. Army recruiting office in the building noticed an odd silver object under a restroom stall wall.

The soldier looked under the wall and discovered a video camera, Dunavan wrote.

A sergeant and a captain confronted a man -- later identified as Fuchs -- when he left the restroom and asked him what he was doing in the women's restroom and whether he had a video camera, Dunavan wrote.

Fuchs said he had gone into the women's restroom because the men's room was full, and he admitted he had a video camera, Dunavan wrote. Soldiers then detained Fuchs and called the police.

When Dunavan arrived, Fuchs repeated his story, removed a silver video camera from his sock and gave Dunavan permission to look at its contents, at which point police arrested him, Dunavan wrote.

Police found several clips on the camera of females using the restroom at the office building, Dunavan wrote.

Online court records show Fuchs -- who is being held in the Cape Girardeau County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bond -- was convicted of invasion of privacy in November in Jefferson County, Mo., after he pleaded guilty to placing a video camera in the women's restroom of a grocery store.

Fuchs was sentenced to three years in the Department of Corrections for that offense but was released a short time later, court records show.

It was not clear why Fuchs was released.

epriddy@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

300 block of South Silver Springs Road, Cape Girardeau, Mo.