TRAVERSE CITY -- A state appeals court upheld the conviction of a Grawn man who snapped illicit photos of a young girl as she shopped.
Harry Henry McSauby in September 2006 was convicted by a Grand Traverse County jury of one count of attempted photographing or capturing the image of an unclothed person. He was sentenced as a habitual offender to 28 to 84 months in prison, then filed an appeal.
The Michigan Court of appeals, in a decision issued this week, upheld the conviction.
A loss prevention agent at Target at Grand Traverse Mall noticed McSauby following a girl, 11, around the store in April 2006. He notified an off-duty Grand Traverse County sheriff's deputy who happened to be shopping in the store.
The deputy said he saw McSauby hold a cell phone with a camera underneath the girl's skirt as she bent over to try on shoes. He intervened, and McSauby began to press buttons in an apparent attempt to delete pictures on the phone.
Prosecutors believe McSauby deleted the photos of the girl, but on his phone they found other images of a woman taken in a Staples office supply store. They used those photos at trial to show McSauby's "scheme" of photographing girls and women without their consent, Grand Traverse County Prosecutor Alan Schneider said, and relied heavily on the deputy's testimony.
McSauby argued in his appeal that the trial judge was wrong to allow prosecutors to admit the Staples photos, but the appeals court disagreed.
"I think the law was clear that we were on good grounds for admitting these photographs," Schneider said.
McSauby also alleged Schneider made improper remarks during his closing arguments in the trial, but the appeals court again disagreed.
Schneider suggested the jury experiment with the phone to see if the photo shutter sound could be silenced because the defense argued someone would have heard the noise of McSauby taking pictures, Schneider said.
The appeals court also rejected McSauby's assertion that he was incorrectly sentenced.
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