The cost of secretly recording women in a Washington state locker room: $1 million in damages. So a judge ruled this week after a couple sued the city of Bellingham and the city employee who admitted to making the videos in 2015 at the Arne Hanna Aquatic Center, the Bellingham Herald reports. The employee, 55-year-old David Alan Frick, didn't appear at the Tuesday decision in Whatcom County Superior Court. "You are a survivor of sexual assault, don't let anybody tell you different," Judge Raquel Montoya-Lewis told the woman, awarding her $750,000 and her husband $250,000. Unidentified as a survivor of sexual harassment or assault, the woman says her marriage has been altered and she felt emotional pain and anxiety.
"I had a lot of emotions going through my head, super angry, I felt guilty for a weird reason, just very confused because that seemed like a big shock, and unlike him," she says. "I felt like I was sexually assaulted but it felt like I didn’t have physical evidence to say I was, it was very confusing." The court dismissed their suit against the city itself, saying Bellingham didn't benefit from Frick's actions, but her attorney says he plans to appeal. Meanwhile, five other women have sued Frick and the city, the Herald notes, and the Herald also reports that detectives found child pornography in his home. Out on $20,000 bail, Frick is facing criminal charges. He's kept quiet so far, asserting his right to not self-incriminate under the Fifth Amendment. (More swimming pool stories.)
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