Man who photographed teenage girl in dressing room arrested

Shortly after 1:00 a.m. this morning, Historic City News learned that deputies arrested 20-year-old Richard James Westerman at his residence located at 3276 Debra Court in the Summerhill neighborhood of St Johns County. Westerman was charged with the crime of video voyeurism.

Nearly two months ago, a complaint was filed by a teenage girl who was shopping at the store with her mother. The 14-year-old girl told deputies that when she entered a dressing room to try on a bathing suit, she observed a cellular phone pointed at her from underneath the dressing room door. The juvenile screamed, hit the door, and fled the dressing room to locate her mother. Westerman retrieved the phone and made his getaway through the store.

Bealls was able to provide an image from their video surveillance that showed Westerman leaving the dressing room area. The image was widely distributed by the media and republished on social media by others who wanted to help identify the person responsible.

Several individuals were able to identify Westerman from the video image and reported their tip to law enforcement. Detectives located Westerman at his residence on April 7th. He admitted to taking photos and video of the victim.

Westerman claimed to have deleted all of the images from his phone. The cell phone was seized and an arrest warrant was issued on April 24th charging Westerman with video voyeurism. Westerman was taken into custody this morning without incident, and was released from jail three hours later after posting a $2,500 appearance bond.