A 17-year-old Chimacum boy has pleaded not guilty to four counts of voyeurism involving cell phone videos taken at Ferino’s Pizzeria in the employee restroom. A pretrial hearing is set for Oct. 19.

Jefferson County Superior Court Judge Keith Harper ordered the suspect, a former employee of Ferino's, to stay away from three suspected victims, who are current employees of Ferino's, as well as stay away from the Port Hadlock business.

Judge Harper also signed three sexual-assault protection orders preventing the youth, who the Leader is not naming, from going within 1,000 feet of those three employees, except to pass on the public right-of-way. All three employees are 18 years or older.

The original charges filed by the prosecutor had included a special allegation of sexual motivation, but Wednesday morning, Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney Anna Phillips asked that allegation be stricken from the charges, and it was.

Attorney Richard Davies appeared with the youth and asked that the youth be assigned a public defender because he could not afford to retain an attorney. Harper granted that order for representation by Jefferson Associated Counsel.

The youth then pleaded not guilty to all four counts of voyeurism.

Judge Harper imposed a number of conditions on the youth's release into the custody of his parents. In addition to having no contact with the three employees of Ferino's Pizzeria, the youth also must stay in school, maintain contact with his attorney, not possess a weapon and “stay out of trouble,” Harper admonished the youth.

“If you violate these conditions you can be arrested,” Judge Harper told the youth, who stood at attention next to Davies. Harper noted that a 16-year-old girl who had appeared in juvenile court shortly before the boy had violated the conditions of her release and was placed in custody.

A number of young women sat in court behind the youth during the hearing, Wednesday, Sept. 28. The boy and his parents left. And then the young women were whisked away by a victim's advocate.

Voyeurism is a Class C felony. A person convicted could be required to spend time in jail and potentially register as a sex offender.

PROBABLE CAUSE

A probable cause statement written by Brett Anglin, Jefferson County Sheriff's Office detective, said that he responded to the pizzeria after the owner called to report that there had been Facebook postings and calls and messages indicating that someone had hidden a camera in a bathroom.

“The video depicted the women's bare buttocks, however, the videos did not depict any other intimate areas. There were four videos in all,” Anglin wrote in his probable cause.

Anglin indicated that one of the employees said she believed the videos were taken between July 8, 2016 and Aug. 29, 2016 based on how she wore her hair in the videos.

Anglin said the videos appeared to be posted on a website, 4Chan.org. The anonymous poster (on 4-Chan.org) indicated that the videos had been taken of people the poster had gone to school with. The person posting also said all of the people were 18 years or older.

Anglin obtained a search warrant to the 4Chan.org website, which provided him with an IP address for the poster of the four videos. A search led Anglin to CenturyLink. Anglin then obtained a search warrant to CenturyLink in an attempt to identify the IP address and that led to the discovery of the address of the youth's parents in Chimacum, according to the probable cause statement.

Anglin indicated that he and another detective went to the youth's home, read him his rights and interviewed him. The youth consented to a search of his room and computer, which was taken into evidence.

The detective noted that the youth was cooperative.