Student pleads guilty of recording women

A Honey Brook man has pleaded guilty to recording at least 20 women undressing in bathrooms and dressing rooms, including in the Genesius Theatre in Reading.

Joshua Yannuzzi, 25, a former West Chester University theater student, appeared before Judge Alison Bell Royer in Chester County Court.

He pleaded guilty to charges of wiretap violations, possession of obscene and other materials, and invasion of privacy.

Royer said she would sentence him within 90 days, and he remains free until then.

Yannuzzi hid his phone in at least 10 bathrooms and dressing rooms, investigators said.

Those places included: Genesius Theatre, Reading, E.O. Bull Center of West Chester University, Footlighters Theater in Berwyn, Chester County and Street Lamp Productions Theatre, Rising Sun, Md., residences in Reading, West Chester and Philadelphia, and multiple beach homes in Rehoboth Beach, Del.

Yannuzzi was a “technological predator,” Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan said in October when Yannuzzi was arrested.

Hogan said Yannuzzi used his ties in the theater community to target certain young women for hidden recordings in private places, then used the recordings for his own sexual gratification.

According to investigators:

On Oct. 10, 2018, a woman found Yannuzzi’s phone taped underneath a sink of a single-person bathroom with no stalls in the Bull Center.

The iPhone was pointed at the toilet and had tape covering the flash part of the phone. The woman double-clicked the home button and noticed the device appeared to be recording video via a mobile application.

She also saw Yannuzzi sitting outside the bathroom and called police, who arrived and found him.

Detectives determined the phone was Yannuzzi’s, and security footage showed him entering the bathroom.

The phone contained video recordings of dozens of individuals in at least 10 bathrooms or dressing rooms, including several showing young women changing backstage at theatrical productions.

Detectives found a spy camera mobile app on the phone, and Yannuzzi admitted to making 30 to 50 recordings last year, including once at a yoga class on the West Chester campus.

Yannuzzi also admitted to uploading one of the bathroom videos to his online account on a website for viewing by those on his friends list.

Following his arrest, West Chester University booted him from school.