A Grovetown man was given probation Wednesday after pleading guilty for taking photos under the skirt of a woman who he followed last year into the Evans Target.
Robert Joseph Hall, who was a 51-year-old shift manager at SRS when he was charged last year, was given five years of probation by Judge James G. Blanchard, Jr. for use or installation of device to film underneath, also called upskirting.
The sentence came despite pleas by the victim to send him to prison. Columbia County prosecutors said there was evidence of multiple victims of the suspect’s fetish who could never be identified from the photos that were taken for months before he was caught on video at Target.
After a blind plea with no guarantees, Judge Blanchard gave Hall five years of probation with an order to go on the sex offender registry and use an ankle monitor.
The victim in the Target case, a 28-year-old Evans woman, told authorities that a suspicious male had followed her from Chick-Fil-A to the Target across the parking lot on Saturday, May 21, 2022.
“While she was in Target, the man followed her in every aisle,” a sheriff’s report says. “She was on the hair product aisle when the man crouched down with his phone in his hand.”
The victim said she believed the man took a photo under the dress she was wearing. She confronted him, and he left the store. Authorities later found multiple images on Hall’s phone at different locations.
Upskirting means taking unauthorized pictures under a woman’s skirt or even a man’s kilt. These kinds of photos usually are images of the private area/underwear with suspects usually taking them in public places. According to experts, the practice is considered a form of sexual fetishism or voyeurism. There are even “specialized” websites where people share “upskirting” images.
In Georgia, a person convicted of the crime is guilty of a felony and faces imprisonment of not less than one year nor more than five years, a fine of not more than $10,000, or both, or in the discretion of the court.
