Suspect in hospital restroom camera case wants to thank cops who busted him, state says
A radiology technician suspected of hiding cameras in the restrooms of three Palm Beach County medical facilities is happy he got arrested, according to Florida Department of Health documents.
Radiology technician Rudelmiro Santizo had a plane ticket to Guatemala, police say, when he was arrested Oct. 20 in Texas before he could get to Central America. Despite his failed attempt at fugitive life and not guilty pleas to 11 counts of video voyeurism, the Department of Health says Santizo had an interesting admission to a department investigator in January.
“Mr. Santizo admitted to placing the cameras in the hospital bathroooms and asked the investigator to thank the arresting officer for arresting him, stating that, if he was not currently in jail, he would be doing ‘worse things.’ ”
That’s in the health department’s emergency suspension order, which came down on Santizo’s radiology technician certificate Friday. Santizo’s license, which he has held since July 2006, expired Jan. 31, and was in delinquent status.
Santizo is still in Palm Beach County Jail and has been since his arrest and extradition.
Santinzo’s online profile says he is a general radiographer and nuclear medicine technologist. Arrest reports and the emergency suspension order say he worked at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach and Lynn Cancer Institute locations in Boca Raton and Delray Beach until October.
According to arrest reports and the ESO:
On Oct. 3, a woman using an employee restroom next to a staff break room noticed white tape around sink piping. She looked closer and found a hole in the tape. When she pulled off the tape, there was “a round black device sitting inside a cardboard cut-out.”
Inside the device was a Samsung SD card with photos and videos of nine people at St. Mary’s. Also, there were photos of two other restrooms with telltale tile, those of the Lynn Cancer Institute locations.
“There were multiple images while inside the LCI-Delray bathroom of a person in light blue scrubs reaching under the sink where the camera was mounted,” the West Palm Beach police arrest report said. “The person had on a large black watch, light/tan colored skin and was wearing gray and black sneakers.”
A check with with the hospitals found only Rudelmiro Santizo-Perez worked at all three places. He took his right to remain silent before West Palm cops, but detective Molly Anderson noticed his large black watch and gray and black sneakers.
Putting him on a Homeland Security lookout on Oct. 18 returned a notification from an HSI agent that Santizo had a flight for Guatemala on Oct. 21.
He never made that flight.
