A Yosemite National Park employee was accused of trying to videotape a law enforcement officer showering, according to court records obtained by the San Jose Mercury News.
Michael Patrick Raridan, a maintenance worker in the White Wolf area of Yosemite, was charged Tuesday by federal prosecutors with filming with intent to invade one’s privacy and committing an obscene act to violate the peace.
The alleged victim was identified as a National Park Service employee and a “commissioned federal law enforcement officer,” according to an indictment.
The NPS employee told authorities she was using a community shower on the evening of July 4 when she noticed a cell phone camera pointed at her while she was standing over the shower.
The woman said she screamed and grabbed a towel before getting dressed to chase the perpetrator.
The NPS employee searched the park grounds with the help of her dog and is said to have found Raridan hiding under an NPS vehicle.
She confronted him about filming her in the shower.
“The suspect told (her) ‘he just couldn’t help it,” an NPS agent writes in a police report.
Raridan had not made a plea on Tuesday, the Mercury News reported.
Both charges that Raridan faces are felonies, but could cost him up to a year in prison.
