Man gets probation for repeatedly recording men in airport bathrooms

Court records show a man with more than 100 videos of other men using the bathrooms at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport had a workhouse sentence stayed and will instead be on probation.

According to Hennepin County records, Michael Lamar Maceda-Tapia will spend two years on supervised probation, but if he violates any of the terms, will spend 180 days at the County Workhouse. While the 180-day sentence was stayed, court records show an additional 30-day sentence at the workhouse was given. He will be eligible for electric-home monitoring after 10 days.

As previously reported, Maceda-Tapia was charged with 11 misdemeanor charges of interfering with privacy last June. However, an amended complaint was filed in February, adding a 12th count of the same charge.

As part of his sentence, Maceda-Tapia must also stay away from the airport, unless he has a flight ticket.

Police first got a report of a man who was taking pictures under the bathroom stalls in the men’s bathroom below Gate E2 at Terminal 1 at around 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 16, 2023. A man reported that he went in to use the bathroom, he saw there were three stalls and the middle one was occupied by someone else. After going into one of the open stalls, the man saw a black cellphone under the stall that “appeared to be trying to take a photo or video of him.”

He then went to use the other stall and saw the phone pointed at him again. The complaint states that the man “found it odd” so he took a photo and video of what he was seeing.

The man then spoke to police and pointed out the man in the middle stall, later determined to be Maceda-Tapia, when he left the bathroom. He was detained and taken to the Police Operations Center for questioning.

As police questioned Maceda-Tapia, he first denied then admitted to having more than 10 videos of men using the bathroom on his phone that he keeps for himself. Police then confiscated his phone and got a warrant to search it.

The complaint states that Maceda-Tapia admitted to filming men in bathrooms for the past few months and that he had worked at the airport since May 2022. Police reportedly found 143 videos of men using the employee bathrooms that appeared to be recorded from Aug. 2022 to Feb. 2023.

The complaint states police spoke with the victims and none of those men gave permission to be recorded, saying they expected privacy while in the bathroom.