SWANSEA, MASS. (WHDH) - A Swansea man was sentenced to jail last week for using false two-way mirrors to record two teenage sisters who had been temporarily living in his home.
Gerald Caron, 66, will spend the next 30 months behind bars after he pleaded guilty in Fall River District Court on Friday to charges including possession of child pornography and two counts of photographing sexual or intimate parts without consent, according to Bristol County District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III.
In January 2020, Caron offered to let the sisters, ages 18 and 15, live at his residence on Stevens Road after they moved out of their family home. Both victims are said to have known Caron for many years.
The sisters stayed in a spare bedroom that Caron created for them and they used a separate bathroom from the one that he used, according to prosecutors. Caron’s bedroom also abutted the sisters’ separate bathroom.
“Over the course of the next five months, the sisters grew suspicious of the defendant’s behavior,” the DA’s office said in a news release. “They believed the defendant went to his bedroom whenever they took a shower, and they heard noises coming from behind the wall supporting the bathroom mirror.”
In June 2020, one of the sisters noticed that Caron had left his bedroom door open, decided to look around the room, and saw a black towel hanging on the closet wall abutting the bathroom wall.
When the girl raised the towel and saw that it covered a two-way mirror looking directly into the sisters’ bathroom, she left the house and reported her findings to Swansea police.
Detectives executing a search warrant later found the black towel and uncovered a camera that was pointed at the bathroom shower and toilet. A search of the sisters’ bathroom also yielded an additional mirror on the wall above a vanity with a camera mount and peep holes hidden behind it.
Additional two-way mirrors with false backs were also found in the sisters’ bedrooms, in addition to camera mounts and peep holes that were accessible from Caron’s upstairs bathroom.
In a statement, Quinn said, “The sentences imposed by the court holds the defendant accountable for his bizarre and perverted conduct,” District Attorney Quinn said. “I want to thank Swansea Police for their quick and thorough work on this case.”
Caron’s prison sentence will be followed by five years of supervised probation.
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