A 28-year-old Chicago man pleaded guilty Monday to secretly recording someone inside a church bathroom in Addison, Illinois, admitting he planted a hidden device meant to capture people as they undressed. Steven Segura was sentenced to two years of sex offender probation after prosecutors say the covert camera turned a house of worship into the scene of a crime.
According to FOX 32 Chicago, Segura placed the recording device in a public bathroom at the Church of God, located at 1125 West Army Trail Road in Addison. Addison police say the device was positioned specifically to capture people as they undressed. A previous FOX report indicated the device was placed in the bathroom around 2 p.m. on August 30.
Segura was formally charged on October 3, 2025, after a victim identified themselves in retrieved video footage, according to the DuPage County State's Attorney's Office. At the time of his arrest, DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin and Addison Chief of Police Roy Selvik publicly condemned the incident, saying that placing a covert recording device inside a place of worship violated community trust.
How Investigators Cracked the Case
The prosecution leaned heavily on digital forensics work. The DuPage County Sheriff's Digital Forensics Unit assisted the Addison Police Department and Assistant State's Attorneys Sandi Tanoue and Heather Misura in retrieving and analyzing data pulled from the hidden bathroom camera, per the county's account. That forensic effort ultimately allowed authorities to identify one victim captured in the recording.
Segura, who lived in the 8100 block of South Scottsdale Avenue in Chicago, was charged with a Class 4 felony. Under Illinois statute 720 ILCS 5/26-4, unauthorized video recording in a restroom or changing room without consent carries statutory penalties of one to three years in state prison and fines up to $25,000 for a first offense. The charge can escalate to a Class 3 felony, punishable by two to five years in prison, if the victim is a minor or the offender is already a registered sex offender.
Why Segura Was Free Before His Plea
Segura was not held in custody in the months between his arrest and his guilty plea. Under Illinois's Pretrial Fairness Act, also known as the SAFE-T Act, a Class 4 felony unauthorized recording charge is classified as a non-detainable offense, which meant court officials were required to release him prior to trial. His release came with conditions, including no contact with the victim and a total prohibition on entering the Church of God property.
Segura's two-year term of sex offender probation now subjects him to the standard supervision requirements Illinois courts impose on such sentences. Those typically include specialized sex offender treatment, intensive probation monitoring, mandatory polygraph testing, and a requirement to immediately report any contact with police, according to standard judicial probation orders issued in Illinois circuit courts.
Not an Isolated Case in DuPage County
Segura's case follows a similar 2024 prosecution in the same county. Hoodline previously reported on a Bloomingdale church camera case in which prosecutors charged Ramon Ochoa Garcia with unauthorized video recording after he allegedly hid a pen camera inside a church restroom vent, recording at least 24 victims, including minors, according to ABC7 Chicago. Separately, a 2025 Kane County prosecution detailed by Shaw Local involved a suburban healthcare provider indicted on multiple counts of unauthorized recording for allegedly filming unclothed patients inside a private treatment room. Together, the cases point to a pattern of covert recording prosecutions cropping up across the Chicago suburbs in spaces where people expect privacy, from churches to medical offices.
