UNION, NJ — A New Jersey National Guardsman recently charged with using his cell phone to take photos up a woman’s skirt at the Target store on U.S. Route 22 had also been charged with a similar act at a mall in Utah in June, police said.
Stephen Grogan, 41, of Dingmans Ferry, Pa., was arrested on a felony charge of invasion of privacy July 27.
Union police were called to the store at 11:45 a.m. by a security officer who reportedly observed a man squatting near female shoppers with his phone in his hand.
The man had left the store, but the employee gave the police a description of his car, and a patrol officer approaching the store on the westbound side of Route 22 saw a car matching the description on the eastbound side of the road. The officer turned around, headed east and saw the car pull into the Walmart parking lot, police said.
The officer’s investigation led to Grogan’s arrest for taking photos under the dress of a 24-year-old woman. She was still inside the store and was unaware Grogan had taken photos of her, police said.
Police said Grogan was released with an Aug. 13 date in Union County Superior Court.
Detective Capt. Scott Breslow confirmed that Grogan had been charged with taking similar photos of women in June in Salt Lake City.
One woman, who requested her identity be withheld, told KSL-TV in Utah that a man had reached for a pair of jeans she was standing over in an American Eagle Outfitters store, and noticed that the man’s cellphone camera was pointed under her dress. After observing him do the same thing to another woman shopper, she alerted store security.
The man fled. Later, the victim posted a photo she had taken of the man on Facebook, and he was identified as Grogan. According to a published report in the Deseret News of Salt Lake City, police interviewed Grogan two days later and charged him with two counts of voyeurism by electronic equipment, a misdemeanor.
Another woman said Grogan had taken a photo under her dress while she was on an escalator, according to the article.
Grogan had been in Utah for military training, according to the article.