A Duluth man has been charged with 30 counts of interfering with privacy for secretly pointing a video camera up under women's skirts.
Benjamin Goldsmith, 24, concealed the camera inside a sweatshirt and angled it low to film under the skirt of a woman at the Mall of America on July 8, according to charges filed Friday in Hennepin County District Court.
The victim was one of 65 women whom Goldsmith filmed under their shorts, skirts or dresses. The images showed "intimate female areas," the charges state.
Goldsmith was at the Mall of America for five hours recording unsuspecting women before he was caught around 7:40 p.m. by mall security officers. Witnesses had reported that Goldsmith walked by a woman wearing a skirt near the Disney store four times with camera in hand. Mall surveillance video corroborated the witnesses' accounts, the charges said.
Bloomington police found a small white Sony camera, a Muscle Milk container used to conceal the camera, batteries and a smartphone when they arrested him. A search of Goldsmith's camera and phone turned up a memory card containing 77 videos of the victims. Goldsmith's face was also shown in most of the videos, the charges said.
Goldsmith appeared to hold the camera low to the ground and either walked past his victims or stood behind them to get the images. The victims did not know that he was pointing a camera up their skirts and recording them, the charges said.
Goldsmith is due in court Feb. 12.
