NORTH MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – A North Miami Beach man who rented a bedroom to a woman and two children installed a hidden camera inside, according to police, leading to his arrest on three felony charges Tuesday.
According to an arrest report, the victim became suspicious after she and Elias Samuel Payan were driving back from the beach and he asked her to change the music on his phone. Police said she saw an image of the room through the camera.
Payan, 42, also resides at the home, located in the 1400 block of Northeast 175th Street, according to police.
The report states that after getting home, the woman checked the room and zeroed in on the smoke detector; after taking it down, she discovered it was a “spy camera.”
Police said Payan had installed the device after the woman asked to change out the previous smoke detector, which was making a beeping sound.
“It should be noted (that the victims) do not have a bathroom in the bedroom and they use that bedroom to change and strip down exposing themselves,” the investigating officer wrote in the report. “It should be further noted that...the hidden camera has a wide-angle shot of the entirety of the bedroom.”
Authorities said Payan “admitted installing the camera into the room of the victims.”
They arrested him on two counts of video voyeurism on a child under 16 and one count of video voyeurism on a person 19 or older.
“I wasn’t even aware I was breaking the law,” Payan told a Miami-Dade judge during a court hearing.
The Nicaraguan national was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $12,500 bond as of Wednesday afternoon, according to jail records.
The victims have since moved out of the home.