A former home security technician in Texas pleaded guilty on Thursday of hacking the home security cameras of "attractive" customers so that he could spy on women while they undressed, slept, or had sex. Telesforo Aviles, a 35-year-old former employee for the security company ADT, admitted he secretly accessed over 200 customers' accounts for years, according to a guilty plea submitted in court.
Aviles, who was pictured byInside Edition in September last year, now faces up to five years in federal prison. Aviles crimes came to light last year after ADT started getting sued by customers who were affected by Aviles' spying on them.
Strange Obsession
Aviles admitted that he accessed the accounts of roughly 200 customers more than 9,600 times secretly over a period of four and a half years while he was based in Dallas, according to the US Attorney's Office Northern District of Texas. He would be able to access the accounts by 'routinely adding his personal email address to customers' ADT Pulse accounts', authorities say.
He would then get access to 'real-time feed of the videos from their homes' and would secretly watch them naked or have sex with their husbands and partners. "Plea papers indicate he watched numerous videos of naked women and couples engaging in sexual activity inside their homes," US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas said in a statement.
"Mr. Aviles took note of which homes had attractive women, then repeatedly logged into these customers' accounts in order to view their footage for sexual gratification," it further read.
Well-Planned Crime
Aviles also said that on some occasions he would temporarily add himself in the accounts so that he could "test" the system, while on most other times, he would access the customers' accounts without their knowledge. Aviles' crime first came to light after it was reported that multiple ADT customers filed lawsuits against the company in connection to the security breach.
Following that he was arrested and charged in October 2020. According to the Daily Mail, one of the victims, Amy Johnson told Inside Edition in September last year: "It's just the ultimate invasion of privacy. It's very scary to realize that someone has access and was watching us for such a long time and so many times in our main living room."
Another alleged victim Shana Doty said: "What he did, he's done to us, he's done to others, and it's just not right." ADT said in a statement last year, "The company has been actively assisting law enforcement, including the FBI, in their investigation to help bring justice to Aviles" victims. Aviles now faces up to five years in jail.
