A former employee of Fruitvale’s Beaver Valley Arena has pleaded guilty to voyeurism in connection with the discovery of a hidden camera at the West Kootenay facility in the fall of 2022.
Trail’s Garrit Charlie Ciardullo, 23, was accused of one count of secretly observing or recording for a sexual purpose and one count of making or publishing child pornography for alleged offences on Nov. 16, 2022.
The BC Prosecution Service confirmed Ciardullo entered a guilty plea on May 23 to an amended count of secretly observing or recording in a place in which a person can reasonably be expected to be nude, to expose his or her genital organs, anal region or breasts, or to be engaged in explicit sexual activity.
Ciardullo, a former Greater Trail Midget Tier 2 Smokies player, was employed at the Beaver Valley Arena in November 2022 when a group of 10 to 13-year-old female hockey players found a clandestine cell phone inside a women’s changing room.
The father of one of the alleged victims, who cannot be identified because his daughter is a minor, previously told Global News that the girls noticed a cell phone concealed in a crack in the changing room’s ceiling.
“They noticed that the phone was actually on record and that’s when their mindset changed from an innocent situation to more of somebody was trying to record us while we were in the dressing room,” said the father. “They were able to scroll back through one of the previous videos and it definitely showed the person who owned the phone setting it up.”
Ciardullo was arrested after the phone was turned over to Trail RCMP.
He was suspended from his arena job and banned from attending all Regional District of Kootenay Boundary (RDKB) facilities.
Chief administrative officer Mark Andison confirmed Ciardullo’s employment with the RDKB was terminated as of May 30, after he was found guilty of a criminal offence.
Ciardullo’s sentencing hearing has been scheduled for Nov. 6 at Rossland Law Courts.