A Nashville man accused of hiding a camera inside a bedside alarm clock to secretly record women during sex has pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful photography, closing out a criminal case that reshaped Tennessee law along the way. Matthew Vollmer entered the plea connected to allegations that he secretly recorded sexual encounters with multiple women, and he will be sentenced at a later date.
The case dates back to April 2024, when Special Victims Division detectives with the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department opened an investigation after a woman in a dating relationship with Vollmer said she accessed his computer with his passcode while he was out of town, according to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. She reported finding sexually explicit videos recorded without her knowledge, including files labeled with her own name, before locating a camera concealed inside a bedside alarm clock. As reported by WSMV, another reported victim separately discovered videos on Vollmer's computer while house-sitting for him.
Metro Nashville Police arrested the then-31-year-old Vollmer in November 2024 on eight initial counts of unlawful photography involving four female victims ranging in age from 26 to 33, according to WGNS Radio. Detectives had identified those four victims as falling within the state's existing legal timeframe for prosecution at the time. Vollmer ultimately pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful photography, per WSMV's report on the plea.
Thousands of Files, Most Victims Locked Out of Charges
The scale of what investigators uncovered went far beyond the initial arrest. Police recovered approximately 25,000 sexually explicit digital files depicting more than a dozen women recorded during sex, with recordings dating back to December 2021, per WBIR's reporting on the case. Under Tennessee's statute of limitations at the time, most of those women were legally barred from pressing criminal charges because the clock started running on the date of the recording rather than the date it was discovered.
That loophole had real consequences. Former lobbyist Erika Thomas learned from police in October 2024 that explicit photos of her existed but was told she was one month past the old statute of limitations, according to the Nashville Scene. One victim described the moment she learned of the videos in stark terms, telling WSMV, “Receiving a call from my law school about sexually explicit videos was one of the most horrifying experiences of my life.”
Uncharged Victims Pushed Lawmakers to Act
Rather than accept that outcome, Thomas and fellow uncharged victim Christiana Werner formed an advocacy movement to push for statutory change, testifying before the Tennessee Senate Judiciary Committee in February 2025, the Nashville Scene reported. Their effort led directly to House Bill 0602, known as the Voyeurism Victims Act, which passed the House nearly unanimously and cleared the Senate 32-0 following emotional victim testimony, according to WBIR. Governor Bill Lee signed the bill into law on March 25, 2025, and it took effect July 1, 2025.
The new law changed Tennessee's statute of limitations for unlawful photography from 12 months after the incident occurred to 12 months from the date of discovery, and it also allows victims of voyeurism to petition for orders of protection, per the Nashville Scene's coverage. State Representative Bob Freeman sponsored the legislation after meeting with women affected by the case. Separately, lawmakers and prosecutors worked during the 2025 legislative session on provisions to allow certain non-consensual recordings of sexual encounters to carry Class E felony penalties, after victims publicly criticized existing misdemeanor penalties as insufficient for someone accused of secretly recording dozens of intimate encounters.
From Civil Findings to a Criminal Indictment
While the legislature acted, the criminal case moved through Davidson County courts on a separate track. Circuit court findings in December 2024 documented that Vollmer stored the secret files on cloud servers, and a Davidson County General Sessions Court found probable cause in March 2025 to send the criminal charges to a grand jury after those civil findings established he maintained the video files of non-consensual recordings, according to WSMV. Under Tennessee Code Annotated § 39-13-605, unlawful photography is defined as knowingly photographing or recording someone without effective consent in a manner focused on intimate body areas that would offend or embarrass an ordinary person, per Justia Law's summary of the statute.
A grand jury formally indicted Vollmer in September 2025 under case number 2025-C-2243, according to Davidson County Criminal Court Clerk records maintained under Clerk Howard Gentry, moving the matter into Davidson County Criminal Court ahead of this week's guilty plea. Vollmer's sentencing date has not yet been announced.
