Women videoed by secret spy camera at Airbnbs in South Carolina, lawsuits allege

The operator of Airbnb cottages in Aiken had a hidden spy camera in the bedroom that secretly videoed women guests on paid overnight visits, lawsuits in S.C. state court allege.

“Plaintiff and her friends did not consent to being recorded in any manner and were unaware that a video camera was located on the property,” a recently-filed lawsuit in Aiken County state court alleges.

“Defendant recorded Plaintiff changing clothes while she was in the bedroom,” the complaint said. “Defendant had set up video surveillance equipment and secretly recorded Plaintiff.”

The video recording device was “on top of a dresser on the left side of the room positioned so as to capture the entire bed and portions of the bedroom,” the lawsuit said.

The complaint said the plaintiff, a woman whose initials are J. F., only learned about the spy camera when an agent from the State Law Enforcement Division contacted her. The complaint did not say how SLED learned about the videos.

That unidentified SLED agent told the woman that “there were videos of her from her stay at Defendant’s property, which included images of her while she was undressing,” the complaint said.

Since learning about the videos, the complaint said, J.F. has been “extremely upset about being secretly recorded and is concerned nude images and videos of her undressing may have been shared and/or could make their way on to the Internet.”

Two more women who filed separate lawsuits — one of whom was a 16-year-old minor at the time — also learned of the secret tapes when a SLED agent contacted them and revealed the hidden video system, their lawsuits said.

One Airbnb, sold last year to a new owner, was a one-story cottage with a front porch on Third Avenue SW in Aiken, according to two of the three lawsuits. The other Airbnb was on a farm in the Aiken area, but the lawsuit doesn’t give a precise address. The alleged events took place in 2019, the lawsuits said.

All three lawsuits alleged that Rhett Riviere, 67, an Aiken resident, was the operator of the Airbnbs involved.

Riviere had little comment but denied the allegations.

“It was a miscommunication,” Riviere told a reporter who reached him at his Aiken house last week. Riviere said the camera system was for security, not for surveillance, then said he was late for a meeting and drove off.

Joe McCulloch, a Columbia attorney who represents Riviere, said he has no comment on the civil lawsuits because they are “pending litigation.”

McCulloch said he knows SLED is investigating but had no comment on possible criminal charges either.

SLED Chief Mark Keel said last week that his agency is still investigating the case but no criminal charges have yet been filed.

Airbnb, which is named as a defendant in one of the lawsuits, had no immediate comment. One lawsuit alleges Airbnb failed to properly vet Riviere as a host for one of its rental sites.

The San Francisco-headquartered corporation is the world’s largest online alternative accommodations platform, advertising some 4 million properties in more than 200 countries, according to a Morningstar investment report. The company brings together people who want to rent their property short-term with travelers and facilitates payments.

“Your safety is our number one concern,” Airbnb says in an online posting.

In national news stories about Airbnb hosts secretly filming guests, the company has called the practice rare and says it does not allow its hosts to install and use hidden cameras.

Bill Weeks, 2nd Judicial Circuit solicitor, said last week that his office is studying information given to it by SLED.

Weeks, the elected prosecutor for Aiken, Barnwell and Bamberg counties, said the pandemic has slowed court actions down but now that things are picking up, he hopes to make a decision on how to proceed in the case within a month or so.

Among potential state criminal laws that might be brought to bear is a statute on voyeurism, Weeks said. His office is talking to all the parties in the case to make sure it comes to the best decision possible, he said.

Under S.C. law, voyeurism is a misdemeanor, but it carries a penalty of up to three years in prison. It is defined as an act whereby someone spies on or videos another person “without that person’s knowledge and consent, while the person is in a place where he or she would have a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

The three women, in their lawsuits, speak of the anguish they suffered on learning from a SLED agent that they had been videoed without their consent.

“Defendant’s actions caused Plaintiff severe emotional distress when he intentionally videotaped the Plaintiff and invaded aspects of her life that were private,” said J.F.’s lawsuit, which charged the secret video “exceed(ed) all possible bounds of decency and must be regarded as ... utterly intolerable in a civilized society.”

In recent years, landlords and others around the country have faced criminal charges in cases where tenants allege they have been videoed without their consent, according to news accounts.

For example, 2018 in Florida, an Airbnb host got a year in prison on video voyeurism charges after secretly recording guests at his Longboard Key condo.

John Reckenbeil, a Spartanburg attorney, represents M. J., one of the women who filed suit. His lawsuit is a potential class action, saying the suit is filed “on behalf of all other similarly situated renters ... who were recorded without their knowledge or consent.”

“For the victims, there is no greater infringement on a victim’s feeling of security and right to privacy than knowing that they have been filmed in their most vulnerable state, and this has to be remedied,” Reckenbeil said in an interview.

Besides Reckenbeil, lawyers representing the women plaintiffs are Deborah Barbier of Columbia, Ryan Beasley of Greenville, Olivia Hassler of Columbia and Mario Pacella of Brunswick, Ga.

Barbier declined comment except to say her client, J.F., is “looking forward to her day in court.”

Besides McCulloch, lawyers also representing Riviere are John Harte of Aiken and Julie Moose of Columbia.

This story was originally published May 9, 2021 at 5:00 AM.