The videos taken and posted online by former FAU employee Seth Thompson were confirmed to have been taken in bathrooms on FAU’s Boca Campus. Two locations were revealed by FAU Police Chief, Charles Lowe in a press conference today — one was a bathroom along the Breezeway, and the other was a bathroom in the Wimberly Library.
The investigation began after a student was informed that a video of him had been placed on a website and the student took it to FAU PD.
“This case would not have been possible had we not had a concerned student who came in, spoke to us and let us know what was going on. It just kind of points to the importance of community participating in the safety of campus,” Lowe said.
After the complaint was filed, FAU PD launched an investigation in August with the aid of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office, Palm Beach Police Department, the Internet Crimes Task Force, and the States Attorney’s Office. The investigation started with one video and led to more information surfacing. This caused the investigation to take a long time to fully gather the evidence according to Lowe.
A search warrant obtained on Aug. 12 revealed that the “subject of the investigation was an FAU employee,” according to Lowe. The subject was revealed to be Seth Thompson who resigned on Aug. 16 after being placed on administrative leave on Aug. 14.
Thompson, who worked for FAU for over 10 years, recently admitted to taping the videos and uploading them to the internet. Thompson has been arrested on 13 counts of video voyeurism and four counts of video voyeurism dissemination.
The videos were taken with an iPhone hidden in Thompson’s pocket and through peepholes in bathroom stalls, which Thompson claims were already in the walls surrounding the stalls.
“It became a personal challenge to him, in his own words,” said Lowe.
FAU PD is confident they have discovered everything that is currently in existence from Thompson’s recordings.
Lowe stated that in some cases the people in the videos are recognizable and the easiest way to have these videos removed is to directly contact the website it is uploaded on. At this time, FAU PD has not identified any other students on the tapes other than the one who came forward.
