The former director of the Naval Surface Warfare Center at the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant was sentenced in federal court last week after pleading guilty to three counts of video voyeurism for secretly recording women as they used the restroom at the facility.
Magistrate Judge Steven P. Schreder of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma in Muskogee sentenced Kenneth Wade Elkins, 56, to 10 months in federal prison. Additionally, he must pay a $10,000 fine for each of the three counts of video voyeurism, must pay $393 in restitution, and must register as a federal sex offender.
The case fell under the jurisdiction of the United States because the offenses occurred at the ammunition plant, which is federal property.
An investigation by the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the McAlester Police Department was launched in 2013 after a female employee of the plant walked into Elkins's office and saw the video feed of the women's restroom. Elkins had placed two covert cameras in the women's restroom of the Naval Center. One was camouflaged as an electrical outlet and the other as a smoke detector. These cameras secretly videotaped the women in the restroom, and the recordings were captured on a VCR in the former Naval Surface Warfare Center director's office.
Investigators recovered a VHS tape which contained footage of three different employees of the center, and Elkins was charged with three counts of Video Voyeurism, in violation of 18 USC § 1801. Video Voyeurism is a Tier I sex offense which requires annual sex offender registration for 15 years.
However, in addition to being convicted of federal sex offenses, Elkins also faces state charges for covertly recording fellow employees in the women's restroom. He is charged in Pittsburg County with two counts each of Recording/Transmitting Obscenity, in violation 21 O.S. § 1021(A)(3) and Using Electronic Equipment in Clandestine Manner in violation of 21 O.S. § 1171(C).
Under Oklahoma law, recording or transmitting obscenity is a felony sex offense punishable by 30 days to 10 years in prison and fines of $500 to $20,000.
Under 21 O.S.§ 1171(C), using electronic equipment in a clandestine manner is a misdemeanor:
Every person who uses photographic, electronic or video equipment in a clandestine manner for any illegal, illegitimate, prurient, lewd or lascivious purpose with the unlawful and willful intent to view, watch, gaze or look upon any person and capture an image of a private area of a person without the knowledge and consent of such person and knowingly does so under circumstances in which a reasonable person would believe that the private area of the person would not be visible to the public, regardless of whether the person is in a public or private place shall, upon conviction, be guilty of a misdemeanor. The violator shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for a term of not more than one (1) year, or by a fine not exceeding Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00), or by both such fine and imprisonment.
For Elkins and others like him, the most difficult portion of the sentence is not the jail or prison time, but the sex offender registration that follows, seriously restricting the rights and liberties of the offender and branding him or her in the public eye. Read more about Oklahoma sex offender registration.
