A personal Poughkeepsie college failed to guard college students from a confessed sex-addicted classmate who allegedly positioned peeping-tom cameras in campus loos, a brand new lawsuit claims.
Former Marist College pupil Kyle Petrozzi, 23, was indicted final yr on 16 felony prices for allegedly putting in a number of surveillance cameras in a serious campus corridor’s unisex loos, in response to Dutchess County officers.
Petrozzi, then a senior, was expelled when the cameras had been found in Could 2025 — however the go well with filed Thursday accuses Marist of failing to correctly “examine and keep” the loos, permitting the accused creep to maintain them rolling.
“I used to be recorded utilizing the toilet in a spot that I trusted and the place I felt protected,” mentioned the alleged sufferer, who filed the Westchester County Supreme Court docket declare as a Jane Doe.
“This incident has made me very anxious and has taken an enormous emotional toll,” she mentioned. “Nobody deserves this.”
Marist — which has over 3,300 undergrad college students and prices $72,000 a yr for tuition, meals and housing — failed to find the cameras for at the least two weeks as a number of individuals’s non-public moments had been recorded, the go well with alleges.
“Because of defendant Marist’s failure to adequately keep their restrooms, plaintiff and the category members had been seen, photographed, and/or recorded,” the go well with claims.
Doe is the one alleged sufferer concerned within the class motion go well with at present, however her attorneys estimated that as much as 80 individuals might have been recorded with out their consent.
“The unlawful recordings perpetrated by a Marist pupil on Marist’s campus in opposition to different Marist college students is a travesty that by no means ought to have occurred,” claimed her lawyer, Nathan E. Werksman.
It’s unclear what occurred to the footage, Werksman mentioned, including that extra particulars will emerge because the legal proceedings transfer ahead.
Petrozzi, 23, is accused of taping the cameras to an uncovered pipe beneath sinks contained in the restroom at Marist’s Dyson Corridor — affording an ideal view of the bathroom, Werksman mentioned.
However the alleged tradecraft was found when a girl kneeled down to select up her dropped cellphone, and got here head to head with a hidden digicam, in response to Werksman, citing prosecutors — who didn’t return The Put up’s requests for remark Thursday.
Marist informed The Put up that the varsity instantly took motion when the cameras had been discovered, and labored intently with investigators.
“Marist is actively reviewing the lawsuit and has remained targeted on supporting any particular person who might have been impacted,” mentioned college spokesman Anthony Proia.
Petrozzi’s lawyer, Richard Portale, mentioned his shopper “has suffered since childhood from a major historical past of Crohn’s illness and a studying incapacity for which he was chronically self medicating on the time.”
“He has and can proceed to just accept duty by persevering with to interact in intensive remedy which started instantly upon surrendering himself to authorities,” Portale mentioned in an announcement.
“We ask for house for the authorized and therapeutic processes to maneuver ahead, and for the ladies impacted to proceed receiving the respect and help they deserve.”
