JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A 49-year-old Starke man was sentenced Monday to more than 17 years in prison after pleading guilty to producing videos of child pornography.
Doyce Griffis must also serve a 10-year term of supervised released and register as a sex offender and forfeit a computer, two video cameras, and other forms of computer media.
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Griffis pleaded guilty to the charges in February.
According to court documents, from February 2000 and until April 26, Griffis operated and maintained a tanning bed in an outbuilding at his home in the 2200 block of Southeast 128th Street in Starke.
Griffis engaged in a business operation in which he allowed individual customers to use the tanning bed in the outbuilding in exchange for a monetary fee. Customers were allowed to make payments by placing money in a slot in the wall of the room of the building housing the tanning bed.
Griffis allowed entry into the outbuilding by providing customers with an entry code to unlock the door and provided specific written instructions on payment options for tanning services. For example, a single visit, referred to by Griffis as "Pay as you lay," cost customers $2.50. Griffis would also allow customers to prepay for visits -- five visits for $10, 10 visits for $20, or a flat fee of $30 per month.
According to court documents, Griffis' customers believed that the room in the outbuilding that contained the tanning bed was secure and that their privacy would be protected. However, unbeknown to his customers, the outbuilding room containing the tanning bed had been equipped by Griffis with a two-way mirror that allowed him to view the room from a second concealed room.
Griffis also made a hole in an air vent near the foot of the tanning bed that allowed him to view customers as they lay inside the tanning bed. Using the two-way mirror and the hole in the air vent, Griffis surreptitiously made video recordings of many of his customers as they undressed, entered and exited from the tanning bed.
He personally operated a video camera and filmed unsuspecting tanning bed customers through the two-way mirror and the hole in the air vent, according to court documents. By filming through the air vent hole, Griffis was able to view and capture graphic, close-up video recordings of his customers.
According to court documents, Griffis made surreptitious video recordings of dozens of female customers, including more than 20 girls. These recordings depicted customers in various stages of undress, and/or engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Griffis produced, collected and maintained the sexually explicit video recordings of his victim customers for his own sexual gratification, and kept detailed notes on the types of physical and sexual characteristics of his customers, according to the documents.
On April 26, the Bradford County Sheriff's Office received a complaint from a concerned citizen that Griffis may be videotaping female customers through the mirror located in the tanning room of his business and an investigation was initiated. During the course of the investigation, Griffis made several admissions as to his activities and investigators discovered a collection of videocassettes, several containing different videos of nude female customers, prosecutors said.
Griffis said that several women that he filmed were under the age of 18, and that two were about 14 years old. He covertly recorded these women and girls while they undressed, dressed and used the tanning bed, prosecutors said.
A subsequent search of Griffis' home revealed a collection of digital video disks labeled "Girls." An examination of the DVDs revealed that one of the videos produced by Griffis depicted a girl having sex with a male while in the tanning room. The video was filmed through the two-way mirror without the knowledge of either of the depicted participants. None of the individuals depicted in Griffis' video recordings knew that he was surreptitiously watching and recording their activities in the tanning room.
A forensic examination of Griffis' laptop computer revealed about 103 videos and 45 images of child pornography that he had downloaded from the Internet.