Wake County has agreed to pay half of a $285,000 settlement to resolve a lawsuit brought by women who were secretly filmed during medical examinations at a county health clinic, closing out a legal fight that dragged on for almost three years. The recordings, made by a former nursing assistant using fixed cameras hidden in exam rooms and bathrooms, included footage of a 17-year-old receiving an examination and images taken during pregnancy and prenatal visits.
The former employee, James Perry, installed the cameras at the county's Sunnybrook Road clinic and had the footage livestream directly to his phone, according to the Raleigh News & Observer. The lawsuit alleged Perry saw thousands of patients over roughly four years, seeing an estimated 20 to 30 patients a day, and used his phone to take pictures under women's clothing in addition to the hidden camera footage. The cameras reportedly remained in place from approximately 2017 through 2021.
How the Scheme Unraveled
The scheme came to light after a county employee found Perry's cell phone at the former Sunnybrook Road clinic and saw livestream video of a women's bathroom playing on the device, per the same News & Observer account. Wake County reported the crimes to Raleigh police within minutes of learning about them. Because the Sunnybrook Road facility sat within Raleigh's municipal boundaries, the criminal investigation fell to the Raleigh Police Department rather than a county agency, according to court records cited by FindLaw.
A Wake County grand jury indicted Perry on 40 counts of felony secret peeping along with multiple counts of sexual exploitation of a minor in November 2022. He pleaded guilty in January 2023 to 18 peeping counts, three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, and one count of installing a photographic device, the same FindLaw record shows. Perry served a state prison sentence and will remain on parole until 2031, the News & Observer reports.
Why Simple Peeping Became a Felony
North Carolina law normally treats secret peeping as a Class 1 misdemeanor, but the statute escalates to a Class I felony when someone intentionally installs or uses a hidden camera to record or livestream images inside a private room for sexual gratification, according to the Patrick Roberts Law Blog. Under a separate statute, a felony secret peeping conviction can also trigger sex offender registration if the sentencing court finds the offender poses a danger to the community, according to the Hiltzheimer Law Office.
Wake County was sued in 2023, and Wake Superior Court dismissed the lawsuit before the North Carolina Court of Appeals dismissed a subsequent appeal, the News & Observer reported. Throughout the litigation, the county argued governmental immunity and was not found negligent or in violation of governing law. Under North Carolina legal doctrine, local health departments perform governmental functions shielded by sovereign immunity from negligence claims unless a county waives that immunity through liability insurance or participation in a risk pool, according to guidance from the UNC School of Government.
A Settlement Without an Admission of Fault
When local governments in North Carolina resolve tort claims through self-insurance reserves or risk pools, immunity is waived only up to the dollar figure set in the approved settlement, the UNC School of Government guidance notes. That structure let Wake County resolve the case for $140,000 of the $285,000 total without conceding wrongdoing. Court records in the underlying civil matter, Ayala v. Perry, also show that lower-level public employees do not carry public official immunity for intentional criminal acts committed outside the scope of their jobs, which is why claims against Perry himself proceeded separately from claims against the county, per FindLaw.
Kate Maroney, representing Wake County, said the county remains committed to professional medical care and to protecting patient privacy and confidentiality, and said officials settled to avoid the high costs and stress of continued litigation, according to the News & Observer. Kristen Beightol, an attorney for the victims, said the women should not have been inappropriately imaged during their healthcare appointments. The plaintiffs' legal team was led by attorneys from the Raleigh-based firm Edwards Beightol, LLC, according to North Carolina Advocates for Justice.
The Clinic No Longer Exists
The Sunnybrook Road facility where the cameras operated is no longer a functioning county health clinic. Wake County Public Health permanently closed the site in February 2026, moving all services into a new 154,000-square-foot Public Health Center at 200 Swinburne Street in Raleigh, according to Wake County Government. The move had been recommended years earlier in the county's 20-Year Master Plan for Human Services, completed in December 2017, which found the aging Sunnybrook Road building no longer suited for modern public health delivery.
