Story by MassLive - WPI student charged with hiding camera inside woman’s dorm room; Device was hidden under bed mattress
A 20-year-old student from WPI is facing multiple charges after he allegedly hid a camera inside a woman’s dorm room earlier this year. Kyle Sanborn of Seekonk was arraigned Friday in Worcester District Court on charges of attempting to commit a crime (electronic recording or surveillance of a nude or partially nude person) and trespassing, according to court records.
Sanborn was released on personal recognizance and will return to court on Sept. 17.
Court records and a search warrant affidavit obtained by MassLive show, on Jan. 23, a female student and her boyfriend discovered a hidden camera under a bed inside her dorm room at one of the residence halls on the WPI campus.
The mini cube camera, which records audio and video, was tucked under a mattress on an unused bed in the room, WPI police investigators wrote in a search warrant affidavit on file in Worcester District Court.
The search warrant affidavit lists Sanborn as the student questioned after the discovery.
Sanborn, according to the search warrant affidavit, admitted to WPI police that he placed the camera in the female student’s room for the purposes of “sexual gratification.”
He admitted to buying the camera over Christmas break and placing it in the female student’s room when he returned to campus around Jan. 22, records said.
Sanborn also told WPI police he downloaded the data from the camera to his personal laptop and erased the data from his recycling bin, according to the search warrant affidavit. He told police he did not see nude or sexually explicit videos or photos but deleted the data so he would not be caught, investigators said in the affidavit.
After MassLive wrote about the investigation in February, WPI officials said the student would have his case referred to the college’s Campus Judicial System.
Sanborn was also ordered to stay away from the female student, WPI said in a statement issued in February.
In a brief statement issued Tuesday, WPI said Sanborn is no longer a student at WPI.
When the female student and her boyfriend discovered the cameras, they tried to look at the SD card on a computer but could not recover any of the data. The female student notified her roommates the following day about the camera.
Sanborn knows the female student and asked her, after the discovery was made, if he could examine the camera, the search warrant affidavit said. The woman allowed Sanborn to examine it.
Sanborn is accused of taking the camera to his room and then returning about 15 minutes later. He also asked the female student about what she intended to do with the camera, the search warrant affidavit said.
The female student told police Sanborn then text-messaged her on Jan. 24 about the camera, which made her think he was somehow involved, authorities said.
The female student then took the camera home on Jan. 25 and her father, and another person, extracted data from it and downloaded the information. A 30-second audio clip containing the voices of the suspect and another male, the search warrant affidavit said.
No nude videos or photographs of the female student were discovered on the camera, records said.
WPI police spoke to the female student on Jan. 27 after she reported the discovery of the camera. She allowed them to search her room. No other devices were found.
The investigators then spoke to Sanborn, who admitted to placing the camera in the room, records said.
Sanborn said he downloaded the data from the camera to his personal laptop and erased the data from his recycling bin, according to the search warrant affidavit. He told police he did not see nude or sexually explicit videos or photos but deleted the data so he would not be caught, investigators said in the affidavit.
Investigators seized Sanborn’s laptop, SD card and retrieved the other SD card, USB drive and camera discovered by the female student.
MassLive, July 2020 - https://www.masslive.com/worcester/2020/07/wpi-student-charged-with-hiding-camera-inside-womans-dorm-room-device-was-hidden-under-bed-mattress.html
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