Richmond: Physical therapist at Kaiser charged with setting up hidden camera in changing room

RICHMOND — A Bay Area man has been charged with setting up a hidden camera to catch female patients in various stages of undress when he worked at Kaiser Permanente as a physical therapist, court records show. Elliot Daniel Wong was charged on Dec. 18 with four felony counts of eavesdropping and four misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct, related to four separate alleged instances of hidden camera recordings from August 2021 to March 2022.

Wong had originally been charged with a single misdemeanor count related to one woman, but the case expanded after police gained access to Wong’s phone, authorities said. Wong’s listed attorney didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. A Kaiser spokeswoman said the consortium may issue a statement on Wong’s case Friday afternoon, but hasn’t yet.

The investigation started on March 18, 2022, when a woman known in court records as Jane Doe discovered an iPhone with the video recording on inside of a physical therapy treatment room, after Wong specifically instructed her to unstrap her bra during a treatment, according to police. The woman called Richmond police, and when the department sent an officer to investigate the call, Wong responded by accusing Doe of stealing his cellphone and telling the officer she was mentally ill, authorities said in court records.

When police and Kaiser staff asked Wong to allow them to inspect his phone, he refused, citing medical privacy laws, police said. But police and prosecutors got a judge to review and eventually approve search warrants for Wong’s phone, which yielded multiple videos of female patients, according to police.

One from February 2022 allegedly showed a woman with her breast exposed, sitting on a hospital bed. Another showed a woman in a gray bray with no shirt on, police said. Police identified Wong in several of the videos, and were able to pinpoint the dates they were recorded on, according to prosecutors.

Wong is out of custody while the case is pending, and is due to be arraigned on Feb. 23, court records show. Doe has also filed a lawsuit in Contra Costa Superior Court, naming both Wong and Kaiser Permanente as defendants. The suit accuses Wong of violating the woman’s privacy and Kaiser of breaching its duty to protect patients by hiring Wong and giving him access to the treatment rooms where he allegedly set up the cameras.

The suit is still in its early stages, and is not due for another court hearing until March..