Martinez, 23, is accused of using his position as a human resources employee at SeaWorld to access an applicant’s phone and discreetly send explicit videos of the man to himself, San Antonio police said. — Unsplash
A job applicant made a disturbing discovery after interviewing at SeaWorld, and now a Texas man is facing criminal charges, officials told news outlets.
David Josiah Martinez, 23, is accused of using his position as a human resources employee at SeaWorld to access an applicant’s phone and discreetly send explicit videos of the man to himself, San Antonio police told KENS.
Bexar County records show the alleged incident happened in June but Martinez was arrested more recently, on May 22, on a charge of invasive visual recording.
According to investigators, the applicant met with Martinez for a job interview in June. At one point during the interview, Martinez told the man he wasn’t able to pull up his application, then asked the man if he could view it on his phone, KENS reported.
Investigators say the man agreed and handed his phone to Martinez, who said he was still unable to access the application – at which point Martinez said he was going to get help and left the room, the station reported. Martinez returned about five minutes later, returned the man’s phone and told him to come back in a week for a swimming test, according to officials.
McClatchy News reached out to SeaWorld for comment, as well as a lawyer listed for Martinez, but neither immediately responded.
It wasn’t until the interview was over and the applicant went home that he noticed something alarming: sexually explicit videos of him and his girlfriend had been sent from his phone to an unknown number, authorities said, the San Antonio Express-News reported.
The job seeker spoke to his father and they both went to SeaWorld’s HR department to find Martinez, but he refused to see them, the newspaper reported. The father and son told police they talked with an HR manager who seemed to be “defending Martinez and minimising the incident”, according to investigators.
Using the man’s phone, and data from Martinez’s service provider, police established that the private videos had been sent to Martinez’s phone, the outlet reported.
Martinez’s bond was set at US$30,000 (RM141,585), records show, but he’s since bonded out. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 26. – The Charlotte Observer/Tribune News Service
