LOUISA COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — A man has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison after pleading guilty to charges related to secretly filming people, including at least one juvenile, in public bathrooms in Louisa County.
According to the Office of the Louisa County Commonwealth’s Attorney, 53-year-old Rodolfo A. Melgar of El Salvador pleaded guilty to production of child sexual abuse material and several counts of unlawful filming. He was sentenced on Monday, Oct. 16.
According to the Office of the Louisa Commonwealth’s Attorney, a man using the bathroom in a Louisa County convenience store in Oct. 2022 noticed a cell phone being held under the stall and realized he was being recorded.
The man immediately reported the incident to the Town of Louisa Police Department. The responding officer reviewed the store’s security camera footage and identified the suspect as Melgar.
The officer arrested Melgar and obtained a search warrant for his cell phone, where several photos and videos of people using public bathrooms, including at least one juvenile, were found.
It was determined that the juvenile lived hours away form Louisa and that their family had stopped at a convenience store in the Zion Crossroads area. Police were able to identify the juvenile victim through security camera footage from that store.
