JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The News4JAX I-TEAM has been digging deeper into a case that has left a local woman feeling violated and frustrated. She said when she went to cancel her membership at a local gym in 2021, a male employee used that opportunity to steal private, nude photos from her iPhone.
“He goes and he sends himself photos,” Evon Lewis told the I-TEAM. “That was my camera, all of me nude to himself while he has my phone. And he hands it back.”
Lewis, who is now 23 years old, said she’s haunted by that experience and wonders why nearly three years later no criminal charges have been filed.
Based on the body camera video obtained by the I-TEAM, it is clear that officers didn’t buy the employee’s claim that it was an accident that the nude photos were airdropped from Lewis’ phone to his phone, but the question remains: Was it a crime?
“I open it and it has my -- I’m shaking because it’s so like -- it has my nude photos recorded on his screen!” Lewis is heard and seen on body cam telling officers with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
The body cam reveals Lewis was clearly flustered as officers responded to the local gym in 2021. Lewis was 20 at the time, and she had her mother with her.
“I took his phone, and I was like, ‘Is this me on your phone!?’ And he was just like, ‘Uhhh,’” Lewis said.
Lewis said her private, naked photos were taken from her iPhone without her consent when she went to the gym to cancel her membership. She said the employee told her she could cancel through the gym’s app -- but he needed her phone.
After about 3 minutes, Lewis said, she got suspicious and saw nine, full-body pictures had been airdropped from her phone to the employee’s phone -- obviously without her permission.
“And those are your photos?” the officer asked Lewis on body camera. “Yes, these are my photos!” she answered. “And he has your photos on his phone?” asked the officer. “From my phone, yes!” Lewis said.
Police went inside the gym to talk to the employee Lewis had accused of stealing her private photos.
“Where is he at?” the officer asked inside the gym.
With his supervisor by his side, the employee answers JSO’s questions.
“As we opened up the app, we went to get the information off of it, and it shut down,” the employee told officers.
The employee went on to claim that he had no idea how the pictures went from Lewis’ phone to his phone -- alleging this might have been a setup.
“An Apple iPhone will never drop random pictures or anything,” one officer said to the employee.
One of the responding officers used to work for Apple for about five years.
“I know what I’m talking about, and I think you’re lying,” an officer said. “There’s no way that her photos magically appeared on your phone.”
When asked how Lewis’ nude photos appeared on his phone, the employee stated, “I just don’t know.”
“Is it that serious?” the employee asked.
“Say, the media may even find out about this,” said one officer. “If she goes to News4JAX, I mean, this going to blow up,” the other officer added.
Officers wrote a lengthy police report, detailing everything the employee and Lewis claimed. The report states:
“At the scene, Ms. Lewis showed me her ‘favorites’ folder on her Photo app which contained 9 nude photographs of herself. Ms. Lewis then showed me a video recording she took after she picked up the subject’s cellphone which showed Ms. Lewis scrolling through the subject’s AirDropped files, which contained the same 9 photographs she had shown me on her cellphone.”
The police report goes on to explain that Lewis allowed one of the officers to log into her gym app, and he found the app did not contain a cancel membership option.
“After several minutes of examining the app and reading the FAQ from the [gym] app, I discovered that the only way to cancel a [gym] membership was to print out a Cancelation Form from the [gym] website which is to be then mailed in. The App did not provide any other cancelation feature option, besides the mail-in option.”
But at the end of the police report, it states Lewis was “instructed to seek further action in civil court in regards to this incident,” indicating to Lewis it was likely a civil matter and not a criminal one because she chose to hand over her phone.
“My heart dropped,” Lewis told the I-TEAM.
Lewis said she reached out to the gym, and they offered her $1,800 to settle the dispute. But she said it wasn’t enough for what she went through.
“I was devastated. I was disgusted. I was embarrassed. I was like, ‘Someone saw me naked,’” she explained. “Someone in a store, a regular like location just saw me naked. How do you accidentally AirDrop nine specific photos out of a camera roll amongst 10,000 photos and they’re all nude of me? Why are you even in my camera roll?”
Lewis said she has gone to therapy and is now ready to talk about what happened to her -- and also call for new, clear laws when it comes to cases like hers.
“What do you want to come from this?” the I-TEAM asked.
“I want laws to change! Because the only reason this guy did not get arrested was because laws were not caught up,” she said.
We talked to News4JAX Crime & Safety Analyst Tom Hackney, a former JSO Director.
“Is this a crime?” we asked Hackney.
“I really feel like despite what was said on that body cam footage, I feel like this is a crime,” he said. “This is something that, that she did not provide them her phone for that reason.”
Hackney believes this could be prosecuted, but in a case like this, the jury might not have anything but the credibility of the witness to rely on.
He points to a case of a Jacksonville nurse arrested for taking a patient’s phone and sending nude pictures to himself. And nationally, several cellphone store employees have been arrested for stealing nude pictures from customers’ phones.
“So, there’s a potential for some video voyeurism,” Hackney added.
Under Florida law, video voyeurism means “electronically transmitting a visual image…when a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy… privately exposing the body.”
“I think this is definitely a topic of conversation. I think a lot of people need to be wary that things like this can happen. You give someone your phone, your phone contains so much personal information, and someone can take it,” explained Jacksonville civil and criminal defense attorney Belkis Plata.
She said there’s a lot of gray area with developing technology and the law.
“Depending on really who looks at this case, what information comes about, they may see it differently. But I do believe that this just is not a crime yet. But I suspect that because of the changes in technology, it may soon become one,” she added.
“Do you think that that’s needed?” we asked Plata.
“Absolutely,” she answered.
Lewis is in school and said she’s trying to move past this incident, but she is still looking for an attorney to help change the laws to make them clearer about this type of offense.
The I-TEAM reached out to the State Attorney’s Office and was told that they are aware of the incident but could not comment further.
We also went by the gym, and we were told the employee involved in Lewis’ incident no longer works there.
Protect your phone -- beyond just locking it
Our phones have so much personal information on them -- including banking information, credit card numbers, and medical records -- so it’s very important to protect it.
“What do you tell other people? As a word of warning, what do you tell other people who might be OK with handing over their phone for whatever reason?” we asked Lewis.
“Don’t hand over your phone,” she said. “Once you hand them your phone, you’re basically giving them permission to do whatever they want on your phone.”
But here’s what you can do to protect your sensitive photos. Both Androids and iPhones have a password-protected hidden folder.
- On an Android: Go to Library > Utilities > Set Up Locked Folder -- then move photos to a locked folder
- On an iPhone: Go to Settings > Photos and select the Use Face ID (or Touch) and then tap HIDE -- (Note, Apple devices may differ depending on the model and software version. For additional information on hiding photos, click here.)