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Store Employees Steal Customer's Naked Cell Phone Photos

By Andrew Chow, Esq. | Last updated on

Here's yet another reason to not take naked cell phone photos: They can easily fall into the wrong (creepy) hands, as allegedly happened to a woman in Florida.

The woman, a waitress, went to a nearby Verizon Wireless store -- actually, a third-party authorized reseller, according to Tampa's WFTS-TV. She asked a store employee to transfer data from her old cell phone to a new one.

But the employee apparently made a bad call that exposed himself, along with a coworker, to criminal charges.

Instead of just transferring the woman's data, store employee Joshua Stuart, 24, allegedly went a few steps further: He noticed naked pictures of the woman on her phone, and downloaded them onto his own digital devices. He also allegedly shared the pictures with at least one coworker.

Those simple acts count as theft -- the taking of someone else's property without permission -- as well as dealing in stolen property.

Stuart may have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for a pesky customer -- a male acquaintance of the woman.

The man must've seemed like a "cool" dude who potentially shared Stuart's love of surreptitiously stolen naked cell phone pics. Stuart voluntarily told the man that a local waitress had recently stopped in and "left 'banging' pictures" on her phone, according to a police report obtained by The Smoking Gun.

Stuart tried to show off his stash of pilfered pics, but couldn't find them on a desktop computer, the police report states. So he grabbed a coworker's phone, which also contained the woman's naked pictures.

The male customer later told the waitress, who then called police. Stuart's coworker, Gregory Lampert, 26, was arrested for dealing in stolen property and offenses against computer users, both felonies, along with a misdemeanor count of theft.

Stuart, who is currently on vacation, is set to be arrested once he returns. He and Lampert could potentially face more charges, as police also found stolen pictures of a second woman who has not yet been identified.

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