Tasked With Security, He Spied on 'Most Intimate Moments' Instead

Ex-ADT tech admits he hacked into home security systems to watch people get undressed, have sex
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 22, 2021 1:24 PM CST
Tasked With Security, He Spied on 'Most Intimate Moments' Instead
Stock photo.   (Getty Images/PHOTOGraphicss)

In Animal House, John Belushi's Bluto used a ladder to spy on women undressing. The modern-day (and perhaps creepier) version of a peeping Tom has a more high-tech method: hacking into home surveillance feeds. That's what Telesforo Aviles, a former employee for home security company ADT, has admitted doing, and he could see up to five years in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges of computer fraud. Per a release from the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas, the 35-year-old home security tech admitted to taking notes on Dallas-area residences where attractive women lived, then secretly accessing more than 200 home security accounts to watch people sleeping, undressing, and having sex. He confessed to doing this more than 9,600 times, for more than four years. ADT first made note of Aviles' actions in April, when it noted on its site that "a customer called to let us know there was an unauthorized email on their ADT account."

The company says that, after a probe turned up other customers with similar complaints, it fired Aviles and called authorities. Aviles say he regularly added his own email to customer accounts (which he wasn't allowed to do) so he could gain access to homes' real-time video feeds. Sometimes he did so secretly, other times after telling customers he had to add his email to "test" the security system. Federal charges were brought against him in October, and multiple lawsuits by ADT customers have been filed. "This defendant, entrusted with safeguarding customers' homes, instead intruded on their most intimate moments," acting US Attorney Prerak Shah says in the release. "We are glad to hold him accountable for this disgusting betrayal of trust." Aviles, meanwhile, is free until his sentencing, but he's banned from working anywhere that gives him access to home security cams, BuzzFeed reports. (More peeping tom stories.)

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