A Plano man caught recording almost two dozen women undressing in stores and apartments around his community has been sentenced to life in prison.
Darius Bradford, 45, was arrested in August 2022 after a woman told apartment management that the maintenance man left his phone in her apartment to secretly record her in the bathroom. Police said that data from the phone was being remotely erased when they arrived at the scene, according to a Collin County news release.
Multiple videos were discovered of Bradford setting his phone up in ways that could record women undressing. The videos were shot in different apartment complexes and stores in the neighborhood. He would “secretly place his phone in a position that would catch a woman undressing or surreptitiously place his phone at an angle so as to see up a woman’s skirt or dress,” according to the news release.
Police said they found 47 videos of nearly two dozen women in total. Among the videos was a recording of the 15-year-old daughter of Bradford’s ex-girlfriend.
Bradford had previously been arrested in 2008 and 2010 for similar alleged offenses. He spent 30 days in jail for the 2008 incident but was never prosecuted in 2010.
The Plano man pled guilty to three charges of felony burglary of a habitation with intent to commit invasive visual recording. The jury was allowed to take into account Bradford’s criminal history when considering his sentence.
State law dictates ​​that a burglary of a habitation charge is a second-degree felony, which comes with a punishment of 2 to 20 years in prison, but it can be upgraded to a first-degree felony with a punishment of 5 to 99 years if the suspect plans on committing an additional felony other than theft.
Collin County District Attorney Greg Willis released a statement saying that Bradford deserved the maximum sentence for his crimes.
“This perpetrator violated the privacy of 23 different women on 47 different occasions by secretly recording up-skirt and undressing videos. He used his job to gain access and his manipulative personality to gain their trust, definitely earning him a life sentence,” said Willis in the news release.
Crime has long been an issue for the metroplex. Murder in Dallas, in particular, has gotten out of control, with a 23% increase logged year over year in the first four months of 2023.
Relatedly, the Dallas Police Department currently has a significant shortage of officers, lacking the 400-500 officers needed to manage crime in the city effectively. The deficit is especially felt in the downtown area, which consistently logs more incidents than in Fort Worth, which has a dedicated downtown unit policing the area alongside private security guards. Such a unit was created in Deep Ellum last year, which reportedly yielded some positive results.
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