In-House Counsel

Creeper Voyeur General Counsel Disbarred For Videotaping Women In Office Bathroom

If you had to guess where this happened, you'd say "Florida" right?

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Judge Thomas Ramsberger, at a hearing accepting James Patrick Stanton’s consent to be disbarred, told the defrocked attorney “I wish you the best of luck going forward.” I wasn’t there. The report in the Tampa Bay Times doesn’t convey Judge Ramsberger’s tone of voice at the hearing. Maybe “best of luck” was said with dripping sarcasm.

I hope so, because I do not wish James Patrick Stanton the “best of luck.” Stanton has already been the beneficiary of some incredibly good luck. Going forward, I wish him ill-favor and bad tidings.

Stanton was an in-house lawyer at MaintenX, which does maintenance (get it) mainly for corporate clients in Florida. While working as their lawyer, Stanton allegedly set up cameras in the bathrooms and videotaped women going to the bathroom and showering.

This behavior is not merely gross, it’s criminal. Another employee found some of the videos on Stanton’s laptop while he was repairing it. (I’ll pause so we can all ponder the Flori-duh level of stupidity to HAVE illegal invasive video on your work laptop, and then TURN IT OVER to some some techie because you can’t figure out how to install Windows 10 or whatever the hell the problem was.)

Stanton was charged with 123 felony counts of video voyeurism. Which seems appropriate. But, all the charges were reduced and then dropped. The guy who found the videos said he told MaintenX management in 2010. Management did nothing. But Mr. Profile in Courage over here didn’t turn over the tapes to the police until 2014, when he no longer worked for the company.

By that point, Stanton’s lawyers successfully argued that the statute had tolled on the offenses, and all charges against Stanton were dismissed. Apparently four MaintenX employees sued MaintanX and Stanton civilly, and an undisclosed settlement was reached with Stanton.

I know I’m supposed to save my ire for Stanton, the actual criminal, and MaintenX, which created the environment where Stanton was allowed to happen and didn’t remove him as soon as the evidence was brought to their attention.

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But this I.T. guy is sticking in my craw. You have in your hands hard evidence that somebody is invading the privacy of potentially every woman you work with. You’ve run it up the chain and, clear as you can tell, no punishment has been made. No justice has been done. And yet you wait FOUR YEARS before going to the police because… you don’t want to get in trouble with your boss? I know you are afraid for you job but, JESUS, HAVE SOME FREAKING COURAGE. How can you even look a woman you work with in the eye while knowing you are letting a sexual predator just LURK there because you are too much of a coward to do better?

There are lots of things that one can take away from the #MeToo moment, but one of the most important lessons has to be that this culture of harassment COULD NOT HAPPEN without an industry of weak men who are not looking out for their colleagues.

When you find a James Patrick Stanton in your midst, you have to ACT. I’m glad he’s been disbarred, but he is free because even the guy who took him down was busy looking out for himself.

Attorney accused of secretly videotaping women agrees to permanent disbarment [Tampa Bay Times]

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Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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