University of Iowa grad and peeping victim lobbies for change to Iowa’s peeping law

IOWA CITY - A University of Iowa graduate who testified against an Iowa City landlord convicted in 2013 of spying on female tenants is now lobbying for a bill that would make it easier to prosecute peepers.

House File 3, expected to go before the House Judiciary Committee next week, would allow prosecutors to charge someone with invasion of privacy as a trespass, a simple misdemeanor, without having to prove the defendant was spying for the purpose of sexual gratification.

'To have someone spying on you messes you up inside,” said Ruth Lapointe, 23, of Des Moines.

Lapointe, who graduated from the UI in 2013, testified against Elwyn 'Gene” Miller, 65, who was charged in 2012 with 11 counts of invasion of privacy based on allegations he spied on tenants, including Lapointe, through holes he installed in their Iowa City apartments.

Miller was convicted Dec. 31, 2013, of six counts. He was sentenced last March to 150 days in jail.

Miller's attorney, Mark Brown, asked Judge Stephen Gerard in 2013 to dismiss the case, saying Assistant Johnson County Attorney Anne Lahey had not proven Miller was sexually aroused by the peeping.

Lahey said Miller's interview with police, submitted to the court on DVD, proved otherwise.

'On that tape, he says he likes to look at women, young women,” Lahey said at trial.

Lapointe remembers police asking whether she knew if Miller had been aroused by viewing her and other women.

'It made it a lot more degrading,” she said. Plus, the legal standard made it difficult to prove invasion of privacy for the men Miller could have viewed through the holes, she added.

Lapointe, who started clerking for Rep. Chris Hall, D-Sioux City, in January, learned of legislation sponsored by Rep. Greg Heartsill, R-Columbia, that would expand the trespassing offense to cover circumstances in which someone intentionally violates another person's privacy by viewing, photographing or filming them through a window or other aperture of a dwelling without a legitimate purpose.

The proposed change would not require prosecutors to prove the defendant's intent was sexual gratification.

That proposal has been rolled into House File 3, sponsored by Rep. Megan Jones, R-Sioux Rapids, which would remove the requirement a victim not have knowledge of being viewed, photographed or filmed.

'This stems from an occurrence in which an individual put a light on a camera in an attempt to let their victim know they were being watched,” Jones wrote in an email to The Gazette.

With encouragement from Hall, Lapointe has been telling her story and lobbying lawmakers. The advocacy has sparked her interest in lobbying as a career, possibly for a social justice group.