GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - A Grand Rapids restaurant worker who hid a cellphone in a women’s restroom to record images of patrons using the bathroom, and inadvertently recorded himself, was sentenced Tuesday to more than five years in prison.
The phone was discovered at the Southeast Side restaurant by a 14-year-old girl, who then notified her father.
Though eight months have passed since the incident, “the experience for her has been terrifying,’’ the girl’s mother told 21-year-old Brandyn James Rosa. “Going out to restaurants, that’s a fear for her,’’ she said.
“I think your acts as it relates to her have really impacted her,’’ Kent County Circuit Court Judge Paul Sullivan told Rosa before sentencing him to between 5½ and 20 years in prison for child sexually abusive commercial activity.
“You’ve had a pretty significant impact on this young woman’s life,’’ the judge said. “Hopefully she’ll get over this and move on and live a normal life, but she seems to be struggling with it to some degree.’’
Rosa apologized to the girl and her family. “I’m going to use my time to better myself no matter what the court gives me,’’ he said.
Rosa was arrested in February after the 14-year-old girl told her father that she saw a cellphone inside a bathroom at Penn Station East Coast Subs. The device was placed above a bathroom light fixture.
Investigators seized the cellphone, which “shows the suspect setting up the camera in the public restroom and the 14-year-old juvenile using the facilities,’’ a Grand Rapids police officer wrote in court documents.
The father of the 14-year-old girl called police to the sub restaurant on 28th Street east of Breton Road SE.
Rosa was charged with child sexually abusive commercial activity and capturing/distributing images of an unclothed person.
During a search related to that case, police found numerous images and videos of child sexually abusive material involving children “in the 2-7 years old range,’’ court records show.
That discovery led to five additional charges, including using a computer to commit a crime and possession of child sexually abusive material.
Rosa earlier this month pleaded guilty to possession of child sexually abusive material, child sexually abusive commercial activity and capturing/distributing an image of an unclothed person.
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