The St. Paul man who is accused of peeping into houses around St. Thomas is facing two new charges after police discovered an external hard drive in the man’s residence containing multiple videos of females and couples being filmed without their knowledge from outside a window.
A search warrant was obtained after Searle was arrested and charged in early September for looking into the windows of female St. Thomas students’ off-campus residences.
An Oct. 28 complaint was filed after investigators discovered a video of a naked 18-year-old woman while searching John David Searle’s home. Searle was charged with a felony count of surreptitious interference with privacy. The maximum sentence is two years in prison, a $5,000 fine or both.
The following week, on Nov. 4, another criminal complaint was filed against Searle, charging him with one felony count of aggravated stalking after more videos of another female victim, age 21, filmed from June through September 2015, were discovered. The maximum sentence for aggravated stalking is 10 years in prison, a $20,000 fine or both.
This was the third criminal complaint filed against Searle this fall. All three cases occurred within a two-mile radius in the St. Thomas neighborhood. The 44-year-old has a long criminal history dating back to the early 1990s.
Searle has pleaded not guilty to the September charges and remains in custody at the Ramsey County Jail. He is scheduled for a court appearance on Nov. 30 at 1:15 p.m. at the Ramsey County Law Enforcement Center.
In the October charge, a video containing the 18-year-old in a bedroom was labeled “A…’s daughter.” The criminal complaint states that the teenager was identified as the daughter of a woman who lives in the same duplex as Searle’s mother. The daughter confirmed that the video was taken during July 2015 while she was staying in the duplex.
The November complaint says an investigator viewed several videos in which the 21-year-old was shown naked in her bedroom. The young woman identified herself in the videos.
“She cried while she viewed the videos and expressed fear that the defendant would get out of jail and return to her residence,” the November criminal complaint says.
The defendant has five prior felony convictions for stalking. Bail has been set at $200,000.
Claire Noack can be reached at noac8702@stthomas.edu.