A Valencia, California doctor has been arrested after video cameras were found hidden inside the bathroom of a chiropractic clinic.
Nicholas Vanderhyde, aged 40, was taken into custody after police found the cameras. Worse, Vanderhyde is alleged to have made recordings of people while they were conducting their most private business.
The criminal complaint is not Vanderhyde’s only problem; he’s now facing suit from 11 families who were patients at the practice.
Visiting a doctor is one of the most intimate things most people do. Patients often need to discuss intimate and potentially embarrassing conditions, and they may have to disrobe. Of course, going to the bathroom is also a private affair, and it is easy to see how infuriated and alarmed patients would be to discover that a doctor to whom they entrusted their care had been electronically spying on them when they thought they had complete privacy.
Apparently the camera was discovered secured to the inside of a cabinet that faced the toilet. The spy device even had its own power supply, and investigators think the camera was sending a live video feed to whoever had placed it.
An unnamed staff member found the camera and told police “it was pointed directly at the toilet,” convincing the staffer that whoever placed it meant to record people in a state of undress so they could view the genital region.
The evidence against Vanderhyde doesn’t look good. Former patients claim that he was insistent that they use the bathroom before he examined or treated them. The restroom was available to staff and patients, including children.
One alleged victim, known only as Alex F., said she was “traumatized by the disgusting violation” against families and her own children, whom she had brought to the practice for treatment.
Janna Trolia is a lawyer representing 17 patients suing Vanderhyde. She said some of her clients allege that the chiropractor touched them inappropriately, probing around the groin area in a way that seemed unconnected to chiropractic concerns.
Further, Trolia said Vanderhyde had a past record of “sexual misconduct” and harassment, and that the practice who hired him knew about that past.
Vanderhyde was arrested for possessing obscene material of a minor under 18 years old, and was released on bail. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office has not yet pressed charges, but they say there are dozens of victims, and some of them are children.
