Below is an excerpt of a story we're working on about a local jeweler who now finds himself in quite the legal bind:
On his cheerful Web site, Ben Sorkin describes himself as a jeweler and “chief optimist.”
But according to police, the longtime Jeweler’s Row shop owner might want to add another title to his list: peeping tom.
The 52-year-old was charged Wednesday with three counts of invasion of privacy after investigators concluded Sorkin had used a hidden camera to videotape three female employees in the bathroom of his store, Ben Sorkin Jewelers, on Sansom Street near 7th.
The employees, whose names were not released, contacted police on April 25 after they discovered the camera and found a VHS tape that featured them repeatedly using the bathroom, said police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore.
Detectives from the police Special Victims Unit immediately confiscated the camera and tapes from Sorkin’s store and also searched his house on Laramie Road near Cliffwood in Bustleton.
Vanore said the investigators found additional video equipment and tapes of “several unidentified young women” using the bathroom in Sorkin’s house.
Dana DiFilippo has covered murder, mayhem and miscellany at the Daily News since 2000. She grew up in Delaware County and studied journalism and photography at Penn State University. E-mail tips to difilid@phillynews.com.
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Stephanie Farr has been reporting for the Daily News since 2007, covering everything from gay porn stars who entered the burglary business to moon trees, skinheads, murders and naked bike rides. She covers crime, both in the city and suburbs, and keeps clippings of bizarre Associated Press articles. Her favorite this year was the story about the drunk in Punxsutawney who gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a dead opossum. E-mail tips to farrs@phillynews.com.
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Phillip Lucas joined the Daily News crime team in 2011. He grew up on the mean streets of Seattle and studied journalism and psychology at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Before landing in the City of Brotherly Love, Phillip was a reporter for The News Journal in Wilmington, Del. Email tips to lucasp@phillynews.com.
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Morgan Zalot is the newest crime reporter at the Daily News, starting in 2011 after interning at the paper twice as a Temple University journalism student. In her past stints at the DN, she covered just about everything, from drunken Phillies fans to a barber shop in a high school to a grisly murder-suicide. She’s a born-and-raised Philly girl who grew up in the Northeast. E-mail tips to zalotm@philly.com.
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