The hidden camera aimed at the women’s shower in Concordia College’s Memorial Auditorium captured footage of nude athletes.
But it also provided police with a picture of the face of the man who put it there. Clay County authorities say it belongs to Steven J. Sopko, who until Friday morning was a custodian at the college. The 31-year-old Dilworth man was arrested Friday evening after Clay County District Court Judge Lisa Borgen signed a complaint charging Sopko with seven gross misdemeanor counts of interfering with privacy.
The case began Thursday evening with a call to police from Concordia College.
Members of the women’s basketball team told officers they had completed a practice and were taking showers when one of them noticed a camera in an air duct, Clay County Attorney Brian Melton said, citing the court complaint.
When the women watched the video with police, the tape showed Sopko putting the camera in the duct and then turning on the shower to wash away footprints, Melton said. Police later visited Sopko and asked if he knew why they wanted to talk to him. Sopko said it was because he put a video camera into the vent, Melton said, citing the court complaint. According to Melton, Sopko said he took the camera from the office of the assistant wrestling coach. Sopko also told investigators he tried once before to videotape the area. That time, however, the camera focused only on the vent cover, Melton quoted the complaint as stating. When the women discovered the camera Thursday evening, it had been running for about an hour and a half, said Melton, who added that Sopko told police he knew there would be a practice going on that evening.
Concordia College spokes-man Roger Degerman said Sopko was suspended from his job Thursday night and fired Friday morning. “We’re quite disturbed by the situation, obviously,” Degerman said. Officials made a sweep of the auditorium and found no other cameras, said Degerman, who added that there is no indication a high school boy’s basketball tournament that began Thursday at Concordia was involved in the incident. Cass County District Court records indicate Sopko pleaded guilty to a theft charge in 1996. Detailed court records are no longer available from that time, but a Forum story from 1996 indicated that the charge involved the theft of keys linked to the Memorial Union and dormitories at North Dakota State University. Degerman said he was not aware of that case, or of any previous disciplinary incidents involving Sopko.
The college has a policy of running background checks on physical plant employees, and Degerman said the school’s procedures will be given new scrutiny. “We’ll be reviewing all of that and making sure we don’t have holes in the process,” Degerman said. “Judging by the early signs of the investigation, I’m encouraged to hear that it appears this was extremely isolated,” he said. “We take some level of comfort in that.” Messages left for women’s basketball coach Jessica Rahman were not returned Friday. Moorhead Police Chief David Ebinger said the incident has been upsetting for the seven students involved, and he said they have indicated they do not want to be contacted by the media. Stating that the taping was “clumsy in its execution,” Ebinger said authorities don’t believe there are any other tapes. “But we are not going to take anything for granted,” said Ebinger, whose department executed a search warrant at Sopko’s residence in Dilworth on Friday evening. Sopko was arrested at about the same time. Surreptitious viewing of dressing rooms and washrooms is at the heart of many invasion-of-privacy lawsuits, but they can be difficult cases for plaintiffs to win, according Dick Pemberton, an attorney who defended the Dilworth Wal-Mart from such a suit in the late 1990s.
A Minnesota State Supreme Court ruling in that case recognized for the first time the right to sue for invasion of privacy in Minnesota. But a jury ultimately decided Wal-Mart was not liable for the actions of an employee accused of taking a photograph of nude women from the store’s photo lab and showing it to others.
