UPDATE, AUG. 31, 2:29 P.M.: Former Santa Ana city intern and budding filmmaker Miguel Ruiz Fabian is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday morning on charges related to the surreptitious creation of 64 videotapes of men doing their business in City Hall restrooms.
The 24-year-old Santa Anan, who allegedly made his masterpieces via his cell-phone camera between Dec. 28, 2010, and May 31, faces 23 misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct by unlawful viewing.
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If convicted, he could face a sentence ranging from probation up to 11 years and six months in jail, according to the Orange County District Attorney's office, which says it will request $15,000
bail for Fabian at his arraignment that is set to begin at 8:30 a.m. Thursday in
Santa Ana.
All of
the victims who could be identified from the image have been contacted by the Santa
Ana Police Department, but some seen peeing and pooping remain unknown.
Not that they'd want to know.
UPDATE, JUNE 8, 1:28 P.M.: As it stands, Miguel Ruiz Fabian is looking at multiple misdemeanors for allegedly videotaping men in restrooms on the west side of Mile Square Park and at Cal Poly Pomona, where the Santa Ana 24-year-old is an engineering student, and Santa Ana City Hall, where Fabian has been fired as a paid intern.
But police say evidence confiscated from Fabian's home and former workplace could result in additional felony charges.
Santa Ana police have sent Fabian's home and work computers to the FBI's computer forensics laboratory for analysis. Besides trying to identify other possible victims of secret videotaping, agents will be looking for child pornography or texts and/or emails about the photos Fabian may have sent to himself or others over the Internet.
Evidence of any of that could expose him to felony charges, according to Santa Ana police, who ask anyone with information about the case to call 714.245.8400.
UPDATE, JUNE 7, 12:55 P.M.: More than 60 video clips of men in
restroom stalls at Santa Ana City Hall, Mile Square Park and Cal Poly
Pomona were found on the cell phone of a paid city intern, according to
police.
Investigators have identified 22 city employees among the
men shown in the 64 videos saved on the phone of Miguel Ruiz Fabian,
24, of Santa Ana, police say.
Fabian, who was arrested on 64 misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct and invading privacy with a camera, is now out on bail. He was detained Friday after an employee found a cell phone on the floor of a stall on the third floor of City Hall. Fabian was in the next stall.
Police are still trying to figure out who the other men are from the restrooms at MIle Square Park and a library at Cal Poly Pomona, where Fabian studies engineering. The illicit taping began in December, according to police.
Fabian, who was a paid intern in the Santa Ana Public Works Department for
the past three years, now faces termination.
ORIGINAL POST, JUNE 7, 12:32 P.M.: An intern with the city of Santa Ana was held by police today amid allegations he secretly videotaped men in a City Hall restroom.
The intern was identified by Santa Ana police as Miguel Fabian.
More details to come . . .
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.