A California father was arrested Thursday on child pornography charges after his wife allegedly found a hidden camera in their guest bathroom that captured more than 900 images of child pornography, the Redding Police Department announced.
Police arrested Ryan Rovito, 34, of Redding, about 160 miles north of Sacramento, on a warrant Thursday after his wife allegedly found the hidden camera and handed it over to him and a connected hard drive. Police. According to the Redding Police Department, officers allegedly discovered child pornography images and several videos from the camera after conducting forensic analysis on the equipment.
“The video shows children and adults using the bathroom, who were not aware they were being recorded,” police said.
Police said that when Rovito’s wife first discovered the camera on March 8, he allegedly “admitted knowledge of the camera but vowed to remove and discard it.”
According to the department, Rovito’s wife turned the electronics over to the police “out of fear that Mr. Rovito had recorded his young children using the bathroom.” After analyzing the items, which yielded hundreds of photos and several videos, detectives obtained an arrest warrant for Rovito and took him into custody Thursday during a traffic stop near Buenaventura Boulevard and Placer Street in Redding.
He was booked into the Shasta County Jail on charges of possession of child pornography and surreptitiously recording an identifiable person, according to Redding police.
Till Sunday morning, his name did not figure in the jail’s online inmate list.
Rovito did not immediately respond to a text sent Sunday to the phone number listed under his name. It was not immediately clear whether he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
Rovito’s wife could not immediately be reached.
The Redding Police Department and the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to questions.