A six-year veteran of the Chesterfield Police Department in Missouri, David Cerna, 33, has been detained and arrested after it was discovered that he had secretly been taping men and boys using a Mobil gas station bathroom then posting them to an adult Website he operated. During the course of the investigation, it was also learned that he had been secretly taping men he had lured to his home, largely from Illinois, for the purposes of performing oral copulation through a glory hole and posting those videos as well. He is currently in jail and being held on a $50,000 bond.
The story has sent shockwaves through Chesterfield, where Cerna worked, Wentzville, where he lived, about a 20 mile drive west on U.S Route 40 and Clarkson, a neighborhood of Chesterfield where the bathroom videotaping took place. Ironically, Cerna’s neighbors, while suspicious of the sudden appearance of Illinois license plates showing up in their neighborhood at all times of the day, had nothing to do with the tip that led to his arrest.
One of the victims, Rob Cheney, learned of the illegal activity when he was provided a screen shot by Fox News. Prior to that notification Cheney had never viewed the Website and was totally unaware of it.
When KTVI Fox News reporter Chris Hayes showed him the screen shot Cheney said, “When I saw myself pooping, I was just like you’ve gotta be kidding me. [But then] I had to think because you don’t document everywhere you go to the bathroom, so it took me awhile to pinpoint where it was. Three weeks and I’m already on a poop cam pretty much. So three weeks and everybody’s seen me poop? That’s terrible.”
Meanwhile, Hayes was unable to find the recording equipment even though he and his crew were able to pinpoint the Mobil station in Clarkson where the activity allegedly took place based on images retrieved from Cerna’s Website, which has since been taken offline. Hayes subsequently approached the Chesterfield County Cyber Crime Unit and, one week later, Cerna was apprehended. (There is nothing in any account to suggest that Mr. Cerna posted video of minors using the restroom.)
There is no word yet on whether or not the federal government will get involved (his Website was available across state lines) and the district attorney’s office is still preparing their case. But as the charges stand now, he is looking at one count of invasion of privacy, a class D felony.
Victims are being sought in Illinois and elsewhere who may have been lured to Cerna’s home under fall pretenses. He used an anonymous woman’s picture to disguise the fact that he is a man.
In fairness to Rob Cheney, it was not he who saw hoimself in a video. A man on the East coast tipped Fox St. Louis reporter Chris Hayes, who found Cheney by the business info on the back of his work shirt.