JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A 50-year-old man is facing charges of lewd and lascivious battery on a teenage girl after she captured cellphone video of him molesting her, police said.
The girl told police that Christopher Hranek had molested her before but that no one believed her so she took video to prove he was doing it.
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Police took the video into evidence, confronted Hranek with it and arrested him Sunday.
In most cases, Florida law does not allow someone to be recorded without their knowledge, but a bill passed in 2015 by the Florida Legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Scott allows children to secretly record conversations and acts of sexual abuse or other violent acts.
The bill was spurred by a Supreme Court decision in 2014 that ordered a new trial for a man sentenced to life in prison for sexually abusing his stepdaughter.
The court said recordings made by Richard R. McDade's stepdaughter should not have been allowed into his Lee County trial. State law generally bars recording of conversations unless all parties agree, and it also prevents such recordings from being used as evidence in court.
The News Service of Florida contributed to this report.