Man who took up-skirt photos pleads no contest, gets probation

The Santa Clarita Courthouse. KATHARINE LOTZE/Signal.
Share on facebook
Share
Share on twitter
Tweet
Share on email
Email

In a plea deal with prosecutors, a former student employee of The Master’s University pleaded no contest Tuesday to one count of secretly videotaping or photographing the body or undergarments of an unsuspecting woman and was sentenced to three years’ probation.

Sebastian Barrales Raymundobarrale, also known as Sebastian Raymundo, 21, appeared at the Santa Clarita Courthouse Tuesday where he entered his plea.

Raymundo sat in Courtroom One with eight people who accompanied him at court, including one of the alleged victims.

Commissioner Martin R. Gladstein sentenced Raymundo to 36 months’ probation.  He also ordered Raymundo to enroll and complete 12 sessions of a sexual impulse control program and to stay at least 100 yards away from The Master’s University. 

Raymundo, who is currently neither a student or student employee at Master’s, was on Tuesday also ordered to obey the conditions of protective orders granted two of the victims in the case, to delete all photographs he had taken, to pay $100 fine and any other related fines and to write a letter of apology to “all known victims.”

Gladstein asked if all the photographs taken by Raymundo had been deleted, Deputy District Attorney Tonya Barseghian said: “He did delete all the stored photographs in my presence.”

“You are a young man with, hopefully, a bright future ahead of you,” Gladstein told Raymundo.

In reviewing the protective orders and granting one of the victims “peaceful contact,” Gladstein said to the young woman: “If there is any contact you think is offensive beyond the bounds of decency, you are to contact the court.”

Raymundo was formerly a student who was employed by the university as a resident assistant, university spokesman Brian Harr said last month.

When the judge asked if he could re-enroll at the university, Raymundo’s lawyer George L. Kita said his client could re-enroll after one year.

Raymundo was arrested in June by deputies assigned to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Parks Bureau on suspicion of having used a concealed camera to take indecent photographs of people.

According to the misdemeanor complaint filed by prosecutors, he used a concealed camcorder, motion picture camera and photographic camera, to secretly videotape, film, photograph and record by electronic means each of the four women.

The complaint further alleged that he took the images: “under her clothing, to view her body or her undergarments, without her consent and knowledge, with the intent to arouse, appeal to, and gratify the lust, passions, and sexual desires of the defendant and invade the privacy of each woman under circumstances in which she had a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

The photographs allegedly were taken under women’s skirts on four days between April and June, according to the criminal complaint and an investigator. One of the incidents was alleged to have occurred on June 12 during a fire on the TMU campus.

Before he entered his plea, Raymundo stood smiling and talking to the eight people who joined him at court — including one of the victims — in the hall outside of the courtroom.

At one point during the sentencing, Gladstein ordered Raymundo to wear an electronic ankle monitor for 47 days.

As proof, when asked by the prosecutor, Raymundo lifted his right leg up to reveal the ankle monitor fastened to his ankle. Since he wore the device for 47 days, that part of the sentencing had been completed.

Gladstein said he wants to see proof of Raymundo’s attendance in the sexual impulse control program and, to that end, ordered Raymundo return to court on Jan. 29.

[email protected] 

661-287-5527  

On Twitter: @jamesarthurholt

Related To This Story

Latest NEWS