Monticello Man Sentenced for Secretly Filming and Photographing Teen Girl

(KNSI) — A 27-year-old from Monticello is headed to prison after it was discovered he was secretly filming and photographing his girlfriend’s 14-year-old daughter.

In April, the teen told police, she discovered a hidden camera in a floor vent in her bedroom. She also found another concealed in a charging block plugged into an outlet in her room, which was on a shared wall with the bedroom her mother shared with her boyfriend, Matthew Winter. She also found a camera in an electrical outlet pointing into the bathroom and her old iPhone stashed in the bathroom’s ceiling vent.

A search warrant was carried out at the home. According to the criminal complaint, police found the iPhone, a snake-style camera in a utility room, and a micro-SD card for data storage in the charging block camera on an end table on his side of the bed. There was also a vent in the bedroom that matched what the teen told police.

Winter told police he knew it looked suspicious, but he had placed the phone in the ceiling vent to keep it away from his three-year-old son. He said the camera in the charging block was for him to monitor his sleeping patterns. He said the other camera pointed into the bathroom because he thought he heard something in the vent and left it where it was because his son was causing problems.

Winter also allegedly told investigators he admitted that “there were things on his phone that shouldn’t be there,” including nude images. He said he was concerned about what was happening with the teen and another friend, who was also 14. He said he found six photos and videos from the girl’s friend but denied having them for personal use before admitting that he viewed them “more than a few times.”

A search warrant was obtained for his devices, which revealed the iPhone in the bathroom ceiling vent was connected to Winter’s Apple watch, which can allegedly be paired with a phone to control the camera app to take pictures and record videos. The phone reportedly contained images of the teen taken from the ceiling vent. Winter’s phone also had photos and videos of the teen, including some of her lying on her bed, using the bathroom, and some of her in various stages of undress. The micro-SD card also allegedly contained over ten gigabytes of footage, including multiple videos and more than one million images of the teen in her bedroom.

Winter was convicted of interfering with the privacy of a minor and sentenced to 39 months in prison.

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