UIC Swimmer Secretly Recorded Women's Swim Team Undressing In Locker Room: Prosecutors

CHICAGO, IL — A Univeristy of Chicago at Illinois swimmer is accused of using his iPhone to secretly record members of the school's women's swim team as they undressed in their locker room, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Joseph Dalesandro, 19, of Naperville, was charged with felony unauthorized video recording and ordered held on $50,000 bail. The UIC freshman and Neuqua Valley High School also was banned from the university's locker rooms and from having contact with the four victims, the report added.

According to Cook County prosecutors, Dalesandro allegedly placed his phone in a gap between the wall and ceiling shared by the men's and women's locker rooms to capture videos of four swimmers between 19 and 20 years old, changing into swimsuits, the report stated. The footage was recorded on two separate occasions Feb. 2, the report added.

During the first case at about 11 a.m. Feb. 2, prosecutors claim Dalesandro recorded three minutes of video of two swimmers undressing, the report stated. In the second instance, he allegedly caught around 45 minutes of footage of two other swimmers changing in the locker room, but this time the women noticed something amiss, the report added.

When laughter was heard coming over the shared wall, one of the women climbed up to the gap and discovered Dalesandro's phone facing the women's locker room, the report stated. The swimmer took the phone, stopped the locked video from recording and gave the device to UIC police, the report added.

Police arrested Dalesandro on Thursday, March 30, after school officials gave authorities a list of people who had locker room access at the time of the incidents, the report stated. While in custody, Dalesandro unlocked his confiscated phone for police and signed a statement admitting he was responsible for making secret locker room recordings twice Feb. 2, the report added.

In court Friday, March 31, assistant public defender Marc Davidson, Dalesandro's attorney, called the videos "a tasteless [prank] … that went nowhere," the report stated. He also said Dalesandro did not share the footage with anyone, the report added.

Citing privacy laws, officials from the UIC athletics department would not discuss what type of disciplinary action would be taken against Dalesandro, who attends UIC on a full athletics scholarship, the Sun-Times reports.

More via the Chicago Sun-Times

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