Irvine police are asking the public for help identifying a man accused of secretly photographing a female shopper underneath her clothing inside the H Mart at Alton Parkway and Culver Drive. According to the allegations, the suspect followed the woman through the store before snapping the photo without her knowledge.
The appeal came as part of the department's recurring #WantedWednesday social media feature, posted via the Irvine Police Department's Facebook page. Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Nick Johnson at 949-724-7131 or by email at [email protected]. No suspect has been identified or charged, and the claims remain allegations under investigation.
The H Mart in question opened in September 2022 as a nearly 60,000-square-foot anchor store in Westpark Plaza, according to the Irvine Standard. The Asian marketplace sits in one of central Irvine's major commercial centers near Interstate 405, drawing heavy weekday and weekend foot traffic.
What California Law Says About Upskirting
Under California Penal Code Section 647(j)(2), secretly photographing or recording underneath a person's clothing without consent for sexual arousal or gratification is classified as misdemeanor invasion of privacy, according to Cron Israels and Stark. A first offense carries up to six months in county jail and fines as high as $1,000. Penalties rise to a maximum of one year in jail and $2,000 in fines if the offender has prior convictions under the statute or if the victim is a minor, per the same source.
Beyond any criminal case, California civil law also allows victims of nonconsensual video or photo invasion of privacy to pursue private lawsuits seeking monetary damages, according to Southwest Legal. Civil claims generally carry a lower burden of proof than criminal prosecutions.
Irvine Has Investigated Similar Retail Cases Before
This is not the first time Irvine detectives have pursued an upskirting allegation tied to a local retailer. In August 2025, Irvine police arrested a 23-year-old Santa Ana man for invasion of privacy after store security caught him allegedly taking upskirt videos at a local department store, according to CBS News. Investigators in that case later found hundreds of similar clips on his phone spanning roughly two years. A separate case reported by United Reporting — Local Crime News described a 45-year-old man arrested after allegedly using his cell phone to photograph under a woman's skirt at an Irvine car wash in 2019.
Despite these isolated cases, Irvine has long been regarded as one of the safest cities of its size in the country. Official FBI Uniform Crime Reporting statistics released by the City of Irvine in October 2023 showed the city had the lowest per-capita violent crime rate among U.S. cities with populations of 250,000 or more for 18 consecutive years through 2022. More recently, a July 2026 MoneyGeek study analyzing city-level FBI crime data ranked Irvine as having the lowest annual per-capita cost of crime among major U.S. cities with populations over 300,000, estimating the burden at $447 per resident.
Social Media Has Helped Crack Cases Before
Irvine PD's property theft team routinely uses recurring social media features like #WantedWednesday and #FelonyFriday on Facebook and Instagram to crowdsource public assistance in identifying suspects, as Hoodline reported in a related report on a wanted shoplifter. The department has previously credited public tips generated through these posts with helping solve local cases, including contributing to an 11% drop in package thefts citywide.
Those digital appeals have paid off before. A #WantedWednesday post led to the arrest of a Monrovia man accused of burglaries in Irvine in 2024, and a similar post helped detectives nab an arson suspect in 2023 with the help of community tips. Whether this week's appeal in the H Mart case produces a similar result remains to be seen, as Detective Johnson's investigation continues.
