B.C. market to pay $750,000 over washroom videos that ended up on Russian porn site
A B.C. grocery store will pay $750,000 to settle a lawsuit after a former employee secretly filmed women in the washroom and uploaded the videos to a Russian porn site.Summary
Red Barn Market in British Columbia has agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by women secretly filmed in the store’s washroom by former assistant manager Matthew Schwabe. Schwabe was convicted of voyeurism in 2021 after police began investigating allegations in 2016. He pleaded guilty to unlawfully observing and recording eight women and publishing intimate images of nine, receiving a 15-month jail sentence and two years of probation.
The B.C. Supreme Court ruling on December 8th orders Red Barn to pay $85,000 to each of five women whose images were distributed online, $25,000 to a woman whose images were not distributed, and $15,000 to the representative plaintiffs, Jennifer Burke and Mallory Colter. The remaining funds will cover legal fees, with reductions for additional identified victims.
The plaintiffs are donating a portion of their settlements to a charity supporting unidentified victims of Schwabe, who filed for bankruptcy in 2018. The court also mandated Schwabe to surrender all recordings to the plaintiffs and assign all copyright of the material to them.
(Source：SooToday)