Police: Summerlin bartender hid camera in women’s restroom for a week
Police say a Summerlin bartender hid a camera in the women’s restroom of his workplace for about a week, during which the device captured images of two naked children.
Christopher Cohen of Las Vegas was charged Saturday with two counts of using a minor to produce pornography and three counts of capturing an image of the private area of another person.
A Metropolitan Police Department report showed that Cohen was arrested nearly a month after a woman, who had been eating breakfast with her grandmother at the John Cutter Tavern, found a “shiny” black USB plug containing a SIM card underneath the restroom sink and turned it in to a local police station. The woman, also identified as a victim, told officers that the restroom had a single toilet and no stalls.
The restaurant is located on West Charleston Boulevard, near Desert Foothills Drive.
When detectives with the Metropolitan Police Department analyzed the contents of the SIM card, they found earlier footage of a “white, bearded man,” later identified as Cohen, inside the kitchen of what appeared to be his home, the report said. The camera also captured Cohen, with the same height, build and tattoos as the man in the kitchen video, placing the device in the restroom at John Cutter.
According to the report, the device had been placed under a fragrance plug-in facing the toilet. The total number of victims identified by police during the investigation was unclear because of redactions in the report.
“After using the restroom, the victims are exposing their genitalia, buttocks, and undergarments/clad genitals,” The report read. “The suspect filmed and had recordings on his SIM card that he placed in the restroom. All of this is captured on the SIM card that was extracted.”
Detectives also met with the owner of John Cutter, Daniel Wedge, who helped identify Cohen as the restaurant’s graveyard manager. He said that on April 12, about two days after the camera was placed in the restroom, Cohen was rushed from his shift to the hospital and did not return to work until after the device was discovered.
Cohen, confronted by police, admitted to owning a hidden camera and working at John Cutter as a bartender for eight years, but denied setting the camera up in the bathroom at his workplace, the report showed. Police said that Cohen told officers he used the camera to record his kitchen area.
In a statement provided to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the restaurant’s owner, Adam Corrigan, said they did not know what was on the camera or how long it had been in the women’s restroom.
“We only know as much about the charges as what Metro has posted for public viewing. This situation was handled swiftly by Metro,” Corrigan said. “Every gaming bartender in the City of Las Vegas must be issued a sheriff’s card, indicating no felonies or criminal background. John Cutter takes the matter very seriously and values the relationships we have built over 17 years as a local family establishment.”
“We hope the community will continue to support the JC family as it has in the past, supporting a team of 50-plus individuals and families while we manage the course,” he added.
Corrigan also said Cohen was terminated immediately after his arrest.
On Tuesday, when he was released from custody on a $75,000 bail, Justice of the Peace Amy Chelini ordered Cohen not to have contact with minors. Court records dated the day after his release show that Cohen also faces one count of possessing, manufacturing or disposing of a short-barreled rifle or shotgun.
Contact Akiya Dillon at adillon@reviewjournal.com.