ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – A man arrested Thursday at a restaurant in Orange County is accused of following an 8-year-old girl into the women’s restroom and recording her from under a stall, according to the sheriff’s office.
Ameer Stewart, 24, faces a charge of video voyeurism by a person 24 years of age or older against a child under 16 years of age, records show.
According to Stewart’s arrest affidavit, deputies responded around 10:45 a.m. to Hash House A Go Go on International Drive, where the girl said she had been getting breakfast with her family. While entering the women’s restroom, the girl said she made eye contact with a man carrying a backpack who entered the men’s restroom before quickly exiting it, the affidavit states.
Now in a stall, the girl told deputies that she heard someone enter the women’s restroom and place a backpack on the ground in the stall next to her. The girl said she could see that a phone was also placed on the floor and propped up on a toilet with its camera lenses facing her the entire time, the affidavit states.
The girl was scared and wanted to wait for the person to exit the restroom before doing so herself, she told deputies. She didn’t leave until her mother went into the restroom about two minutes later and asked if she was there, according to the affidavit.
Outside of the restroom, the girl said that she recognized the backpack and phone being carried by a man who would be identified as Stewart, the affidavit states. After learning what happened, the girl’s father went back into the restaurant to find Stewart while her mother soon provided a statement to law enforcement, according to the affidavit.
Stewart told responding deputies that he was currently homeless and looking for a job at the restaurant, the affidavit states. He denied ever entering the women’s restroom until investigators confronted him with surveillance footage, the sheriff’s office said.
Stewart was arrested and booked at the Orange County Jail on no bond, records show.