Teen charged with video voyeurism

SANDPOINT — An 18-year-old Sandpoint man was arrested Monday for allegedly using a mobile phone to capture images of a woman inside a restroom stall and then wielding a skateboard as a weapon when he was confronted.

Josef James Lee Senesac is charged with video voyeurism and aggravated assault. He made an initial court appearance on Tuesday via video feed from the Bonner County Jail.

Judge Barbara Buchanan set Senesac’s bail at $25,000. Senesac declined the appointment of a public defender to represent him, court records indicate.

Sandpoint Police were summoned to the Cedar Street Bridge at about 11 a.m., after a 59-year-old reported that somebody was using a mobile phone to take pictures while she was using the toilet. Senesac allegedly extended his arm under the stall’s partition while holding the mobile device, according to a probable cause affidavit.

The woman reported the incident to a business owner on the bridge. The two women, plus another man, confronted Senesac as he was leaving the women’s restroom and attempted to detain him, but he escaped out of the east end of the bridge.

During the confrontation, the affidavit said, Senesac swung his skateboard at the 41-year-old businesswoman’s head.

Senesac was later apprehended and allegedly confessed to police detectives. When asked why he did it, Senesac reportedly said he did not know, but that he gets urges and “has to act on them,” the affidavit said.

It’s the first time in Bonner County in six years that a resident has been prosecuted for video voyeurism, a felony.

Mark Bernhoff Johnson was accused of repeatedly videotaping his teenage neighbor through her bedroom window in 2006. The charge was eventually downgraded to disturbing the peace and Johnson was sentenced to three months in jail.