Peeping Toms raise the stakes... with cameras

TYLER - Video voyeurism...

Fancy word, but it boils down to this— when someone secretly records another person... to get their sexual kicks. Think of it as a "Peeping Tom" with a camera.

The most recent example... ESPN reporter Erin Andrews. She was videotaped nude in a hotel, without her knowledge. She's on the national stage, but don't think for a second this can't happen to you. It can and has happened right here in East Texas.

In Tyler, there's no better example than the case of Donald Lee Gray in 2006. He was convicted of videotaping women walking in and out of the Broadway Square Mall for some type of sexual arousal or gratification.

When police searched his van, they found vaseline, a towel and an inflated air matress, along with masking tape and a sledgehammer.

We got the police reports. The women in the report say he had no shame about what he's doing.

Keep in mind, these days video cameras can be so small. And don't forget about cell phones. So any creep with a camera could be lurking behind a lens... and you'd have no idea.

We spoke with Attorney Blake Bailey in Tyler about the issue.

Bailey says, "You can see the problem. The problem is that we want to give everybody freedoms to take photographs and do other things... To walk around the mall, to say hello, how are you doing, what time... All those things. Yet there's this thin line when someone starts using his freedoms for purposes of voyeurism. That changes the conduct and therefore creates the crime."

It's a thin line that may be easier to cross... than you think.