From Pennlive

WILLIAMSPORT – Spy cameras in a State College area apartment have resulted in a criminal charge and a federal lawsuit against a Massachusetts man accusing him of invasion of privacy.

The suit filed Tuesday in U.S. Middle District Court contains allegations against Nils D. Knutrud, 28, of Westborough, similar to those in a Jan. 17 Ferguson Twp. police criminal complaint in Centre County court.

Knutrud is accused of secretly recording Matthew Crust and Tina Edelstein, with whom he shared the apartment on West Aaron Drive.

Crust and Edelstein filed the civil suit seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for “egregious invasions of privacy.”

Knutrud waived his preliminary hearing on a criminal charge of invasion of privacy and is free on personal recognizance awaiting county court action.

The following are the allegations against him taken from the arrest affidavit in the criminal case and the civil complaint:

Crust and Edelstein knew Knutrud for about two years before August 2017 when they moved into the apartment with him.

The three are former Penn State students but only Edelstein graduated, university records show.

Knutrud as a Christmas gift in 2017 gave the other two a DVD player that he installed at the foot of their bed.

Edelstein became suspicious over the way the player was given them and that Knutrud would take it to his upstairs bedroom at times.

The morning of May 25, 2018, Edelstein and Crust removed the casing and saw components that appeared to be glued in place.

They took the player to a Best Buy, where staff confirmed the presence of the camera, microphone and storage device.

A USB card reader viewed during the police investigation contained 43 motion-activated videos including those of Knutrud installing the player and focusing it on the bed.

Multiple hard drives, storage devices and computer-related equipment were found in the apartment as were two cameras hidden in a bathroom attached to the bedroom Crust and Edelstein shared.

Videos recovered included those of Crust and Edelstein nude or partially nude and engaging in a sex act. There also were audio recordings.

An USB drive found in Knutrud’s bedroom contained 27 partially or fully nude photographs Edelstein had taken of herself in 2015 and stored on her secure Apple iCloud account.

The down loads were dated Dec. 6, 2017, about the time Edelstein said Knutrud was coming up with excuses to borrow her computer.

Claims against Knutrud in the civil suit besides invasion of privacy cite violations of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, Stored Communications Act and the right of informational privacy guaranteed by the Pennsylvania Constitution.