Posted on 03/24/2004 7:14:23 AM PST by Arrowhead1952
Woman sues, saying her pictures were circulated at two stores
By Claire Osborn
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Employees at two Walgreens drugstores in Austin copied sexy photos that customers had brought in to be developed and passed them around to other workers, according to a lawsuit.
The suit alleges that three employees of the photo lab at the Walgreens at 11724 Research Blvd. had a "stash" of more than 150 customer photos that they distributed among employees there and at the Walgreens at 6812 N. Lamar Blvd.
"The photos range from a person posing in a bikini in the background to a person in a bathtub with rose petals in it to people engaged in sex," said Derek Howard, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit against Walgreens and the three employees.
The three employees named in the lawsuit as "instigators" worked at the Research Boulevard store. They are Stephen Tolliver, Joshua Floyd and Nirav Patel.
A woman sued them and Walgreen Co. after she and her roommate took their photos to be developed at the North Lamar Walgreens during August and September of 2003, the lawsuit said.
Employees in the photo processing department made extra copies of the pictures and showed them to other employees as well as to supervisors and managers at the Walgreens on Research, the lawsuit said.
Howard would not say how the woman found out what had happened with her pictures.
Howard said he found out about the practice, which he said had been going on for about a year, when one of the employees at the photo lab at the Walgreens on Research contacted him after quitting in disgust over the pictures.
"He was basically instructed to make copies of any interesting sexually explicit photos for the amusement of other Walgreens employees," Howard said.
Howard said he sent a letter to Walgreen Co. authorities in February warning them about the problem.
He said dozens of customers could have been affected.
"We would be more than happy to let them know whether their photos were in fact duplicated in this manner," Howard said.
He said there is a code number on the back of the photos and that people can call him to see if the code number matches any on a list kept by his secretary.
People can also call and describe the photograph. Howard can be contacted at 480-9300.
There is no evidence that the photos have been posted on the Internet, Howard said.
The Austin Police Department is not investigating Walgreen Co. in connection with the lawsuit, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Walgreen Co. is "deeply concerned" about the lawsuit, said Carol Hively, a corporate spokeswoman in Chicago.
Copying customers' photographs is against store policy, she said.
"There is no justification to retain customers' prints for any purposes," she said. "We respect our customers' right to privacy."
She declined to comment further.
Anyone who ever takes photos to any place that develops them, should realize that someone will see the developed copies.
Absolute bull$hit. Take a picture of your 3-year-old in the bathtub and see who comes knocking at your door.
Nobody comes knocking at your door. Talk about "absolute bull$hit..."
Yeah...not that these people deserved what happened to them, but they really did. You gonna take some porno pics of yourself or your wife? USE A DIGITAL CAMERA YOU DOPE!
You're just asking for trouble otherwise! These people are LUCKY their pics didn't end up on the Internet! There are whole websites devoted to pics like this (ameteur, voyuer style, etc).
Not that I've SEEN any such sites of course.
Back in the day, I used to say "Get a POLAROID CAMERA".. boy, I feel old..
This reminds me of a true story:
Several years ago, a co-worker had a little too much "cheer" at the Company Christmas party. Well, one thing led to another and he ended up doing his version of a pole dance wearing red glitter panties. The scene was much enjoyed by all and an entire roll of film was used to document it by another co-worker.
We eagerly awaited them being developed and when she got them back from the store we were disappointed to find photos of what appeared to be a First Grade Graduation. I guess someone else was in for a big surprise in their envelope.
" WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
DIVERSITY IS STRENGTH"
Several years ago, a co-worker had a little too much "cheer" at the Company Christmas party. Well, one thing led to another and he ended up doing his version of a pole dance wearing red glitter panties. The scene was much enjoyed by all and an entire roll of film was used to document it by another co-worker.
We eagerly awaited them being developed and when she got them back from the store we were disappointed to find photos of what appeared to be a First Grade Graduation. I guess someone else was in for a big surprise in their envelope.
Something similar happened to a friend of our family here. Their first child had his one year birthday party, and there were several really funny and cute pictures taken. One was with him smashing his face into the cake, and she was so ready for that picture to be processed.
Shea she got the pictures, they were from an adult party, with several topless women in boats on Lake Travis. She complained to the store, and they finally got the pictures of the kids party.
I wonder where the topless photos finally wound up at?
A quick google search turned up these:
"Jacqueline Mercado, a 33-year-old Peruvian immigrant, took a few photos of her young children at bath time. A week later, Richardson police were rummaging through her house for kiddie porn, and a state child welfare worker came to take her kids away."
-- dallasobserver.com/issues/2003-04-17/feature2.html/print.html
"The Cambridge Police detectives who arrested Toni Marie Angeli for suspicion of child abuse because of nude photographs she took of her 4-year-old son--and for the ruckus that resulted at the arrest scene--have been accorded an outsized portion of blame in this free-speech comic opera. There is plenty of fault to find officers' conduct, but at the risk of sounding cynical, I'd say the police acted the way police tend to act. Responding to a tip from Zona Photography Labs in East Cambridge, where Angeli had taken her film for processing, they saw nude pictures of the child and immediately associated child nudity with child pornography and, in their lexicon, its close cousin, child abuse."
-- users.rcn.com/kyp/hsangeli.html
"Just three days ago the sheriff's department showed up in my office with the pictures I sent for development. They had some naked pictures of my daughter who is 5 years old. They were questioning me regarding the "pornographic" contents of the pictures I took."
-- salon.com/letters/2000/02/04/kincaid/
"In February 2000, Marian Rubin, a 65-year-old New Jersey grandmother, was arrested at her neighborhood MotoPhoto when she arrived to pick up a roll of film she had taken of her granddaughters ages three and eight. A school social worker and semi-professional photographer whose work had been published and exhibited locally, Ms. Rubin had kept her grandchildren overnight. As the girls frolicked naked after their bath, dancing, pirouetting and tumbling, she snapped seemingly innocent pictures..... he told police he and his wife didn't have a problem with his mother's previous pictures of the kids."
"Federal and state child-pomography laws also require processing professionals to report sexually explicit photos of minors."
-- loper.org/~george/trends/2001/Jun/95.html
That ought to be fun.
She complained to the store, and they finally got the pictures of the kids party.
"And to compensate me for my trouble, I'd like a set of prints of the adult party."
We actually had the drug store lose the full role of film from my daughter's 2nd Christmas (the first one where she did anything). Never did get those back. I'm glad your friend fared better than we did!
" WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
DIVERSITY IS STRENGTH"
Yea. You sure did, absolutely.
What a tool. What a putz.
Somedays, I blame the government for being so corrupt.
Other days, I blame you for trusting them implicitly,
lieing for them, and allowing their corruption to continue.
Thanks Geraldo.
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