A cop in Chesterfield, Missouri, has been
arrested and fired on charges of invasion of privacy filed
in two counties. He allegedly operated a hidden camera in a men’s
bathroom at a local gas station in one county, and a hidden camera
at a glory hole in his home in another county. The cop, David
Cerna, is accused of posing as a woman in Craigslist ads, inviting
men to come to his home for anonymous sex, and then surreptitiously
recording the encounters.
Cerna was apparently hosting the material on his own website,
and Chris Hayes, a reporter with Fox 2 in St. Louis, was able to
connect the dots. You can read his account—which is at times
difficult to follow—here.
Hayes says he was able to match the bathroom found in a video
posted online to a specific gas station bathroom in Chesterfield
with the help of one of the men caught on tape. The camera wasn’t
there when Hayes arrived, however, so he took his research to the
Chesterfield Police Department.
The website that hosted the material was shut down shortly after
that, but not before the information Hayes had gathered could be
used to trace the website to a home, Cerna’s, which police raided.
Hayes reports Cerna was arrested less than a week after he went to
police with his investigation.
Police say there were no warning signs that could have clued
them in to Cerna’s behavior, but that “once we learned of his
involvement, we acted swiftly to minimize the possibility of any
additional victims; and to hold Officer Cerna accountable for his
actions.”
Fox 2 only reported that David Cerna was “no longer” a
Chesterfield cop, but a phone call to the police chief’s office
confirmed that he was terminated. The police chief’s assistant said
she doubted Cerna could appeal the decision, since he had admitted
guilt and agreed to the termination.
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