Russia helps nab Missouri gym worker accused of recording nude women in tanning booth
Russian authorities helped capture the man accused of taking photos and video of naked women as they tanned, Missouri police said, according to FOX2.
U.S. officials say that Russia alerted the Department of Homeland Security after former gym employee Michael Koch submitted 175 photos to a “Russian photo-sharing website,” the St. Louis TV station reported.
The pictures were taken between May 2016 and November 2017, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, and 41 of the images “were of unidentified women in various states of undress inside tanning booths, according to a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security.”
Those 41 photos were believed to have been taken in private tanning booths at St. Peters Club Fitness, KMOV reported. He worked at that gym from 2010 to 2017, KSDK reported.
“Most of the images do not contain the victims’ faces or are of poor quality,” St. Peters police said on Facebook.
Koch, 26, also posted photos of his girlfriend engaged in sexual acts and of his sister while she was nude, according to charging documents obtained by the Post-Dispatch. Both his sister and girlfriend told police they didn’t know they were photographed, the St. Charles County documents state.
Koch was secretly recording women since May 2016, police said, according to KSDK.
After Russian law enforcement notified the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, police tracked him down, FOX2 reported. The photos were uploaded to the photo-sharing site from an IP address at his home, and his account with the site was connected to the same email as his Facebook, according to FOX2.
Police say Koch was also caught holding a phone over a tanning booth so that he could photograph the woman inside in September 2018, KMOV reported. Surveillance video confirmed the victim’s report.
The O’Fallon, Missouri, man was charged with two counts of invasion of privacy and one count of attempted invasion of property on Tuesday, police said on Facebook.
Police are looking to identify other victims. If you tanned at the St. Peters Club Fitness in 2016 or 2017 “and feel you could have been photographed,” contact 636-278-2244 ext. 3540.
In a written statement provided to KMOV, Club Fitness said the following:
“Club Fitness takes every measure to ensure the personal privacy and security of our employees and members. Should there be any suspicions or reports about inappropriate actions or privacy abuse, we will contact the authorities immediately.”
This story was originally published March 7, 2019 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Russia helps nab Missouri gym worker accused of recording nude women in tanning booth."