Video voyeur who taped women, girls gets prison

WEST CHESTER » Judge Patrick Carmody had a question for Andrew Machalette, the Chester County man who secretly recorded adult women and young girls in guest bedrooms at his homes in two counties at his sentencing hearing.

What punishment would Machalette — a father of two girls, a beloved son and brother — suggest he should impose if “some creep” had videotaped his daughters, his mother, while they were getting undressed? What would a proper sentence include?

“Honestly, I don’t know,” responded Machalette as he sat at the defense table in a courtroom full of his family and some of his victims. “Probation and house arrest, I guess.” Wrong answer. Carmody on Friday sentenced Machalette to 2½ to 10 years in state prison, plus an additional six years probation and other conditions, including a sex offender’s evaluation and Megan’s Law requirements. The judge expressed incredulity that Machalette would set such a low bar for the invasion of his victims’ privacy and imposition on their dignity.

“Really?” he said when Machalette made his statement. “I’d

be furious.”

The sentence Carmody handed down was less than the three-year minimum prison term the prosecutor in the case, Assistant District Attorney Christine Abatemarco had recommended in her presentation to the court on Friday, but considerably more than the period of probation or nine months of electronic home confinement that Machalette’s attorney, Eric Strand of West Chester, asked for.

Machalette, 37, of Spring City, had pleaded guilty in September to multiple counts of invasion of privacy and felony possession of child pornography as his case was about to go to a jury trial. He had been warned by the judge at the time that he should be ready to report to prison on his sentencing day since the judge took his offenses very seriously.

“This case is not about pornography,” Carmody said in explaining his reasoning behind the prison sentence. “It’s not a peeping tom case. It is a calculated plan to capture people (while naked or undressed) and to use that for your own pleasure.

“It is such a selfish act,” the judge continued. “It leaves (the victims) traumatized, to be secretly filmed at their most vulnerable.”

Knowing they had been spied upon in their most private moments left those who wrote to the judge questioning how they could feel safe again in such situations.

Although at least five of the eight victims of Machalette’s secret “voyeurism by video,” as Abatemarco described his crimes, were present for the sentencing, none spoke directly to the court. Two had presented victim impact statements to

Carmody telling him about how they had been negatively affected by learning they had been captured by a home computer camera while visiting his house years ago.

When he pleaded guilty, Machalette reluctantly admitted that he had recorded the women and young girls in part because of an addiction to pornography, what he called in a conversation with his ex-wife, who found the flash drives he kept the videos on when they were separating, as a “dark place.”

“I just want to say ‘sorry’ to everyone here,” Machalette said in a brief statement to the court Friday. “I know I hurt a lot of people. I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. I was in a dark place, and I needed help but I didn’t get it when I needed it.”

The secret recordings were made at home that Machalette, his wife and two daughters lived in

East Vincent and Limerick, Montgomery County, in 2013, 2014 and 2018. The two attorneys in the case, Abatemarco and Strand, disagreed on whether there had been constant taping over the span of five years, but eventually agreed that his guilty pleas only covered eight months in 2013 and 2014 and one month in 2018.

The videos showed six women and two teens either naked or undressing and even captured Machalette masturbating while viewing one or two of them. This newspaper does not identify the victims of sexual crimes such as these unless the people involved agree that their names can be used.

Stand, in making the case that Carmody should not sentence Machalette to a lengthy prison term, said that his client had already suffered humiliation and estrangement from his daughters, whom he has not seen since his arrest in 2019.

“He has not tried to diminish his conduct,” the veteran defense attorney told the judge. “There is no evidence that his behavior is likely to occur again. The biggest punishment for him has been the loss of contact with his daughters. For some time in his life, he was a stay-at-home dad. Losing that will continue to be a punishment.”

But Abatemarco, a member of the D.A.’s Child Abuse Unit, pressed for the state prison term because of the violation it had caused.

“No one knew they were being recorded,” she reminded Carmody. “And the defendant kept those videos over a period of years. His conduct was a huge betrayal of trust for people who should have been safe and comfortable in his home. He took advantage of that trust.”

Under the terms of his sentence, Machalette will be subject to reporting requirements of the state’s Megan’s Law, meaning he must register as a sex offender for 15 years. He will also have to complete sex offender’s treatment in prison depending on the outcome of his court-ordered evaluation.

Despite the worries of some victims that Machalette may have copies of other recordings he made with secret cameras that were not discovered by police, Carmody agreed with Strand that he could not take those fears into his sentence.

“I cannot consider crimes that are not charged or proved,” the judge said. “But I can consider the fact that everyone who was in that room thinks that he has stolen a part of their privacy and that they will think of that forever.”