Editor’s note: This story contains descriptions of sexual abuse and may be upsetting to some readers. Please see the bottom of this story for additional resources.
An American University student has been charged with secretly recording other students in campus bathrooms.
Documents filed by police in D.C. Superior Court in May allege that, between April 15 and May 1, Markus V. Huerta, 19, discreetly took photos and videos of approximately 10 to 15 men in the Letts Hall fourth floor south wing bathroom. He pleaded not guilty to four counts of attempted voyeurism on May 9.
This is the second incident in which an AU student was indicted on D.C. voyeurism charges in recent years. Former AU student Kyle Blanco was sentenced in April in an unrelated case on charges of voyeurism and possession of child sexual abuse materials.
The Eagle discovered Huerta’s arrest in a crime data newsletter from the Metropolitan Police Department. The arrest has not been previously reported, and the University has not released a statement to the AU community at the time of publishing. Under the Clery Act, a 1990 landmark campus safety law, university administrators must use their discretion to report what they see as serious or ongoing threats.
Court documents filed after Huerta’s arrest listed his Letts Hall room as his residential address. The conditions of his release ordered him to stay away from students involved in the case but did not ban him from campus.
Elizabeth Deal, the University’s assistant vice president for community and internal communications, said in a statement to The Eagle that Huerta “was temporarily suspended last semester and is barred from campus as we continue to work with the US Attorneys’ Office on the active investigation.”
Huerta’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The AU Police Department found 51 photos and 31 videos “taken without the [students’] knowledge or consent” on Huerta’s two iPhones during an electronic search on May 8 by a U.S. Capitol Police special agent, according to an affidavit by AUPD Detective Amanda Kaja. The affidavit is a sworn statement establishing probable cause for Huerta’s arrest.
The affidavit, a search warrant and an arrest warrant indicate that the investigation and arrest were performed by AUPD, with the only outside help from the Capitol Police special agent. Deal said AUPD works with an inter-agency forensic unit led by the U.S. Secret Service to conduct electronic searches.
Huerta’s phone contained several photos and videos depicting “numerous males in the nude and in various stages of undress” and others that “depicted males urinating within toilet stalls,” Kaja wrote in the affidavit.
Kaja searched Huerta’s room, two doors down from the Letts 4 South men’s bathroom, on May 6. She confiscated two phones and three phone cases which, she said, matched descriptions given by two students who noticed they were being recorded in shower stalls. Director of Housing Mason Henderson and AUPD Detective Joseph Barnes were present for the search, according to an inventory signed by Kaja.
The incidents happened twice to one student, who noticed he was being recorded and first reported the crimes to AUPD, Kaja wrote in the affidavit.
The first time it happened to this student, the perpetrator left the bathroom quickly after the student noticed a dark-colored phone with a purple case angled toward him.
The second time, the student left the stall after seeing a black phone in a clear case appear over the wall dividing his stall from the one adjacent, and observed the bathroom as the person in the adjacent stall showered.
The student was brushing his teeth in the bathroom, he told police, when Huerta, who lived on that floor, left the stall from which the phone had appeared and walked out of the bathroom.
The student looked up Huerta on Instagram and confirmed he was the man he saw in the bathroom. Kaja wrote that she identified the photos in the account as him “based on her previous interaction with Huerta.”
During the search of Huerta’s room, AUPD found a matte black iPhone case “that matched the description of the telephone case” that the student observed.
Huerta gave one iPhone to Kaja and “stated it was the only telephone he had.” But, the detective wrote, “Shortly before exiting the room, Huerta then stated that he ‘just’ found another iPhone of his which was currently charging on his desk underneath his lofted bed.”
Police found three iPhone cases in total, but the search inventory said that police only confiscated his two phones, not the cases. The search warrant was authorized for “iPhones that contained images and/or videos (deleted or otherwise).”
The 82 photos and videos that police found on his phones “appeared to take place in the Letts 4 south men’s restroom based on the restroom features and design, which were identical to photographs” taken by Kaja, she wrote in the affidavit. All but one photo and two videos were on the phone that Huerta initially did not tell police about.
The photos and videos depicted approximately 10 to 15 students, Kaja wrote, who “were within an area in which they had a reasonable expectation of privacy.” The detective did not say how many of the students were identifiable.
Students left in the dark
In an unrelated case from April 2022, former AU student Kyle Blanco was sentenced this April to almost six years in prison for charges that included secretly recording women in campus bathrooms and possessing child sexual abuse materials. He pleaded guilty to one federal and one D.C. criminal charge.
Blanco’s case was announced by the University April 4, a day after the Justice Department released a statement on his sentencing. It had not been previously announced or reported, although he was first arrested two years earlier.
The University is required by law to alert the campus community of crimes AU considers a “serious or ongoing threat,” according to the Clery Center, a nonprofit that advises universities on the Clery Act.
Universities have a lot of discretion about what constitutes a serious or ongoing threat, said S. Daniel Carter, a consultant who worked with the Education Department to develop and amend Clery Act regulations between 1999 and 2008. Since then, Carter has advised universities on how to best follow the law.
“Clery Crimes,” which universities have to evaluate the threat of, include murder, sexual assault, robbery, theft, arson, hate crimes, domestic violence, stalking and weapons, drugs or alcohol law violations that resulted in disciplinary action.
AU’s policy is to issue alerts for “crimes the University considers representing a serious or continuing threat to students and employees,” according to the 2023 Annual Safety Report.
“Absent extraordinary circumstances, an institution is usually given wide deference to make the determination about whether or not there’s an ongoing threat,” Carter said.
Deal, the University spokesperson, said AUPD evaluates “The severity of the crime, likelihood of recurrence or escalation, identity and intent of the perpetrator, potential for broader impact on the campus community and past behavior or history of the perpetrator.”
She said examples of some, but not all, crimes AU considers serious or ongoing threats are those involving physical harm, weapons and sexual or domestic abuse, and those motivated by bias.
The Eagle gave a copy of Kaja’s affidavit to Carter, who said he thought the voyeurism incidents that Huerta is charged with didn’t pose a threat to the broader campus, but the University could have notified residents of the floor where the crimes occurred.
When asked, Deal did not say in the emailed statement whether the University notified residents of the fourth floor about the crimes, but pointed to an April 15 entry in AU’s daily crime log which listed a voyeurism incident inside Letts Hall.
“Based on that initial report, where [the student] was fairly certain it was a resident of that floor, and then the subsequent reports were in the same location with the same suspect, the best course of action probably would have been to warn the residents of that floor,” Carter told The Eagle in an interview.
Notifications that aren’t sent to the entire community don’t qualify as timely warnings under the Clery Act and wouldn’t be subject to review by the Education Department.
“There are solutions that can exist without invoking federal law,” Carter said. “The ramifications of that could have been that the suspect would have stopped engaging in the criminal activity,” but police could have still caught the suspect.
Huerta appeared in court via videoconference July 1, where his lawyer said he was in plea negotiations with the prosecution, according to the case docket. He is scheduled to appear in person for a status hearing in D.C. Superior Court on July 30.
Students who have experienced sexual assault or harassment can seek support through confidential resources such as the University’s Center for Well-Being Programs and Psychological Services, the Student Health Center, the Kay Spiritual Life Center or the following hotlines:
- Collegiate Assistance Program: 1-855-678-8679
- Rape, Abuse, Incest, National Network (RAINN) anonymous chat
- RAINN hotline: 1-800-656-4673
- DC Rape Crisis Center: 202-333-7273
Non-confidential resources include the University’s Title IX Office and AUPD.
This article was edited by Walker Whalen, Tyler Davis and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks.
