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EAGLE MOUNTAIN — A contractor hired to work in the basement of an Eagle Mountain home was arrested and accused of taking secret photos of the homeowner's teen daughter after she got out of the shower, according to police.
Jay Lynn Magnuson, 29, was arrested Tuesday by the Utah County Sheriff's Office for investigation of voyeurism by electronic equipment and three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor.
On Saturday, about 7 p.m., Magnuson, an electrician, was contracted to do work at a home in Eagle Mountain, according to a police affidavit filed in 4th District Court.
A junior high-aged girl who lives in the house said she had just gotten out of the shower and was sitting on her bed when she noticed a cellphone "being pushed up through the vent in her bedroom wall. The phone was pointed in her direction. The juvenile said the phone went up and down numerous times. Each time it was pointed in her direction," the affidavit states.
The girl texted her parents, who were not home, and asked them to return immediately, according to the report.
"She informed them that she believed that she had been recorded naked by the contractor that was working in the basement next to her bedroom," the affidavit states.
According to a statement from the Utah County Sheriff's Office, the area Magnuson was working in was inaccessible to the girl's bedroom. But the girl texted her mother, "telling her she could not call because she was afraid of what would happen if the electrician realized she knew what he was doing."
The parents called Magnuson's boss on their way home and had him call Magnuson to ask him to leave the house, according to investigators.
When police later interviewed Magnuson, he said "that he took between 5-10 separate video recordings" of the girl, police wrote.
"Jay said he had a pornography problem and he admitted to searching and watching pornographic videos of teenagers being secretly recorded. Jay admitted that he had been watching these type of pornographic videos on the day this incident occurred, during his lunch break," the affidavit says.
During a search of Magnuson's web browser on his phone, investigators found "search terms related to 'hidden' cameras and teens 'changing in locker room.'"
