A former Los Angeles County probation officer was sentenced Thursday for taking upskirt pictures of a model, who said in court that she "felt sexually assaulted" and "like a piece of meat" after she caught the man secretly taking pictures up her dress.
Julio Mario Medal was sentenced to five years' probation and 120 hours of community service for taking upskirt photos of Brittanie Weaver on March 15 at a Sherman Oaks pet store.
At a news conference after the sentencing, Weaver said she felt so violated and humiliated by Medal's actions that she missed out on career opportunities and withdrew from two semesters at her university.
The 24-year-old model noticed Medal following her through the pet shop and trying to discreetly take photos up her dress with his iPad.
After the incident, Weaver tracked down Medal through his profile on LinkedIn. She saw at the pet shop that he was wearing a name tag for his job as a court interpreter and spotted the name "Mario."
"This has been a time consuming and stressful battle to protect my dignity," Weaver said outside the courthouse.
Medal, a former Los Angeles County probation officer and court interpreter, was charged with and pleaded no contest to two counts of secretly videotaping for sexual gratification and one count of loitering for the purpose of committing a crime, both misdemeanors.
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During the course of his probation, Medal will not be allowed to own any video recording device, including a camera phone, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Henry Barela said.
Because he was not charged with a felony, Medal will not have to register as a sex offender, but Weaver and her attorney, Gloria Allred, want that to change.
Allred and Weaver said that taking non-consensual upskirt photos with iPads and smartphones should be a felony.
"Obviously, the law has not kept up with advances in the tech world, and the law needs to be
changed," Allred said after the sentencing.
She went on to denounce Medal's actions as "disgusting," "wrong" and "criminal."
The pair said they are looking for legislators to sponsor a bill to make taking unlawful upskirt recordings a felony.
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