NORRISTOWN, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — The King of Prussia man accused of breaking into his neighbor’s home and hiding a camera was ordered to stand trial on burglary and indecent assault charges, along with several more filed on Tuesday at his preliminary hearing.
At times, 27-year-old Ryan Selleny watched the screen as prosecutors played some of the videos they say they recovered from his phone and other devices. At other times, he looked down or at his hands.
“What you saw today in court was very upsetting, and it’s really just a glimpse into what was going on in the mind of this perpetrator,” said prosecutor Lauren Marvel, who reasoned that the evidence showed a pattern of escalating behavior.
“Increased frequency of visits to the victims, home burglaries of the victim's home over the course of that period, and increasing levels of intrusion into her home and into her privacy,” she said.
Upper Merion Township Police seized the camera at Kingswood Apartments in King of Prussia on March 24, after his neighbor discovered the device, initially thinking it to be a small phone plug charger in her apartment.
Some of the videos show the point of view of a person going through the woman’s apartment, picking up underwear off the floor of her bathroom, then rooting through her clothes.
Two videos show a man, who prosecutors say is the defendant, pleasuring himself with the woman’s underwear, on one occasion mixing body fluids into a water bottle that she unknowingly later drank, then in a juice container and putting it back in her refrigerator. A man’s voice narrated those videos. Detectives said it was clearly Selleny’s voice.
“It was as if he was kind of talking to her at points, where he called I think he called her baby or something to that effect,” Marvel said.
“The way the law reads, just doesn't seem adequate to describe just how much of an invasion of privacy of safety and space this was.”
Selleny faces additional burglary, indecent assault and theft charges, as detectives say they found some of the woman’s personal, intimate items, in ziplock bags in his room — as well as a lock-picking kit and the woman’s spare key. Those charges are in addition to what he is already facing for allegedly hiding the camera in that woman’s apartment.
According to detectives, the investigation is ongoing. They said that while they found packaging for four cameras, they only recovered three.
“If anyone suspects that they may have had contact with him, suspects that he could have been in their home, we certainly encourage them to reach out to the police, even if it's just an inkling and they think it just could have been,” said Marvel. “That's something that we could investigate.”
Selleny’s next court date is on May 29 in Norristown.