NORRISTOWN >> A Berks County man who previously spent time in jail for indecent exposure faces new allegations he secretly photographed females, including a teenage girl, undressing in a fitting room at an Upper Providence Target store.
Michael Anthony Ramos, 45, most recently of the 1000 block of North Fifth Street, Reading, faces a Sept. 17 pretrial conference before Montgomery County Judge Gary S. Silow on charges of invasion of privacy and possessing child pornography in connection with incidents that occurred April 24 at the Target store in the 1800 block of Ridge Pike in Upper Providence.
Ramos, formerly of the 500 block of East Philadelphia Avenue, Boyertown, remains in the county jail while awaiting trial on the charges. He was formally arraigned in county court this week.
With the charges, Upper Providence police alleged Ramos entered a store fitting room at about 8:45 p.m. April 24 and held his cell phone over the top of a fitting room door as a woman inside was trying on a bikini top. The woman screamed and got dressed but Ramos fled from the store before anyone could stop him, court papers indicate.
The woman indicated she did not hear any shutter clicks from the cell phone camera, leading her to believe the phone was either in its silent mode when photos were being taken or that the phone was in video recording mode.
The woman said the incident was very “upsetting,” according to the criminal complaint filed by Upper Providence Detective Patrick Haines. Video surveillance obtained from the store showed the suspect entering the store and the fitting area and then leaving the store and driving away.
Detectives prepared a crime flyer which included the suspect’s photograph and within days detectives received information from county probation and parole officials who said they believed Ramos was the man depicted in the wanted flyer. Ramos, who worked as a truck driver for an Oley company, previously had been on probation and parole for an indecent exposure conviction in 2008, according to court papers.
On May 27, Upper Providence detectives, with the assistance of Reading police and state parole agents, went to Ramos’ residence with arrest and search warrants. During the search, detectives seized several cell phones allegedly belonging to Ramos. A forensic examination of the phones uncovered numerous video and audio recordings and still photos, according to the arrest affidavit.
There were 14 videos within the phone that were dated April 24 “and had been taken inside the Target Store changing room area,” Haines alleged. Thirteen of the videos depicted a teenage girl, “who had been in the changing room trying on bathing suits,” as she was in various stages of undress, according to the criminal complaint.
The fourteenth video was the one that was interrupted by the adult woman who initiated the complaint to store personnel and police, court papers indicate.
Detectives also found 28 photographs of the 14-year-old female victim stored in Ramos’ phone.
“It is important to note that in many of the videos taken in the changing room area of the Target store…Michael Ramos, while in the process of videotaping, had passed by mirrors located in the changing room stalls and his own images were captured on video,” Haines alleged in the arrest affidavit.
Detectives were able to eventually identify the teenage girl who was secretly recorded and photographed by Ramos and contacted her parents, court papers indicate.
Additional photos and videos, other than those linked to the Target store, also were discovered on Ramos’ phones, and depicted unidentified adult women exposed in bathroom facilities in other unidentified stores, detectives alleged. Other videos, timestamped with dates between April 25 and May 23, focused on the groin areas of unidentified women in vehicles and a woman exiting a Wawa store in Limerick, detectives alleged.
Detectives alleged in court papers that Ramos’ background included “sexually based deviant behavior.”
In January 2008, according to Mercury files, Ramos, then of Boyertown, admitted to exposing his genitals while he was driving his work truck in Upper Merion near the King of Prussia Mall. Ramos pleaded guilty to a charge of indecent exposure in connection with the April 2007 incident on Route 202 in the area of North Gulph Road.
Ramos subsequently was sentenced to 11 1/2 to 23 months in jail and several years of probation, according to court records.
According to a criminal complaint filed by Upper Merion police, a woman told police she was traveling southbound on Route 202 when Ramos, operating a truck owned by a Norristown area recycling company, pulled up next to her vehicle at a traffic light at North Gulph Road.
The woman told police that it appeared the man, later identified as Ramos, was masturbating. The woman subsequently recorded the truck’s license plate number and notified police.
Police traced the truck to Ramos’ workplace.
When Ramos was interviewed by police several days later he admitted to masturbating while in the truck but claimed “he was not directing his actions at anyone in particular,” according to the arrest affidavit.
