Two months after his law license was suspended and he was charged with illicitly filming renters at his beach property, a South Carolina workers’ compensation attorney now faces a civil lawsuit by one of the alleged victims.
The lawyer for the plaintiff in the case said the suit reflects the growing concerns about the “epidemic” of hidden cameras in rented vacation properties.
The plaintiff, a South Carolina woman, filed suit Jan. 7, charging Aiken, South Carolina, attorney William Daniel Mayes and his wife with negligence and reckless or wanton conduct. In the criminal charge documents from October, Daniel Mayes had admitted to setting up hidden cameras to record people in the beach house, and confirmed he possessed a Dropbox account where law enforcement officers found hundreds of videos, the lawsuit complaint alleges.
The videos included shots of people, including minors, in the nude, with some of the scenes set to music, the complaint contends.
Daniel Mayes, who handled workers’ comp and disability cases at an Aiken law firm, has not yet responded to the lawsuit. He could not be reached for comment and his attorney declined to talk, according to the American Bar Association Journal, which published an article on the suit this week.
The South Carolina Bar suspended Mayes in November and his name was removed from his law firm’s website, the ABA Journal reported. That came shortly after he was charged with five criminal counts, including the sexual exploitation of minors, the South Carolina Attorney General announced in late October.
Investigators had received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which led them to Mayes, Attorney General Alan Wilson said in a statement. The lawsuit alleges that law officers obtained search warrants and discovered a Dropbox account labeled “Folly HC,” apparently referring to a Folly Beach vacation property.
Some of the footage showed the plaintiff in the suit in the bedroom, changing clothes. Another video showed the defendant watching those videos, the suit alleges.
“Plaintiff remains concerned nude images and videos of her have been shared with third parties,” the complaint reads.
Mayes’ wife was named in the suit but she does not face criminal charges.
Deborah Barbier, the Columbia attorney representing the plaintiff, told The State newspaper that hidden cameras in rental units have become an epidemic, the ABA Journal reported. CNN and other news outlets have reported that police have seized thousands of videos from cameras set up at rental properties around the country. AirBnB, a firm that manages vacation rentals, not mentioned in the lawsuit, said early in 2024 that it has policies forbidding hidden cameras in private spaces.
The firm’s website said AirBnB provides property owners with $1 million in liability coverage for bodily injury to a guest or damage to personal property. The site does not mention privacy or camera issues.
Related: Insurers Settle With Hotel in Case of Woman Videotaped in the Shower
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