NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- A former LaGuardia Airport worker has been sentenced to six months in jail for trying to secretly record a woman as she used an airport restroom, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Samuel Rodriguez, 39, was sentenced on Tuesday after pleading guilty to setting his cell phone inside a paper towel dispenser in an attempt to record “unwitting” restroom users, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a release.
“In pleading guilty, [Rodriguez] admitted to preying on unwitting individuals by setting up his phone to record women using the bathroom,” Katz said in a statement. “He turned an airport restroom into his own personal peep show.”
Prosecutors say a woman heard a beeping sound after she went into a one-stall unisex restroom inside the airport around 9 p.m. on Dec. 19, 2018.
When the woman started searching for the source of the beeping, she discovered a cell phone that was “actively recording inside the paper towel dispenser” and angled toward the toilet, the release said.
Law enforcement officials determined the phone belonged to Rodriguez, the DA’s office said. Rodriguez admitted he placed the phone inside the dispenser, prosecutors said.
“I know what this is about, and I’m sorry,” he said, according to the release. “I was trying to video pretty girls. I was going to masturbate to it at home.”
Rodriguez no longer works for the airport, the release noted.