June 28, 2023
(McKinney, Texas) –District Attorney Greg Willis announced that Darius Bradford, 45, of Plano, Texas, was sentenced by a jury to life in prison following three convictions of Burglary of a Habitation with Intent to Commit Invasive Visual Recording. “This perpetrator violated the privacy of 23 different women on 47 different occasions by secretly recording up-skirt and undressing videos. He used his job to gain access and his manipulative personality to gain their trust, definitely earning him a life sentence,” said Willis after sentencing.
On August 24, 2022, officers from Plano Police Department responded to an apartment complex after the apartment manager reported that a female resident had caught a maintenance technician named Darius Bradford leaving his cell phone in her bathroom to record her without her consent. When officers arrived, Bradford’s cell phone began remotely erasing.
Despite this attempt to destroy evidence, police found videos of Bradford setting up his cell phone in the victim’s bathroom and leaving it there to record her on three different occasions.
Plano Police Department Detective Steven Sanders was the lead investigator on the case. He found evidence of 47 other invasive videos on Bradford’s cell phones. The videos depicted Bradford secretly recording dozens of victims inside various stores and apartment complexes in the community. One of those victims included the 15-year-old daughter of an ex-girlfriend.
Bradford’s modus operandi was to secretly place his phone in a position that would catch a woman undressing or surreptitiously place his phone at an angle so as to see up a woman’s skirt or dress.
Additionally, the State presented evidence that Bradford had been previously arrested for Invasive Visual Recording at a Ross department store in Dallas County in 2008. Bradford was originally placed on probation but was later sentenced to 30 days in county jail when he failed to go to sex offender treatment. Bradford was again arrested for Invasive Visual Recording after recording a woman at the Galleria mall in 2010, but was never prosecuted.
Under the law, a Burglary of a Habitation is a second degree felony, with a range of punishment of 2 – 20 years in prison. The burglary is enhanced to a first degree felony, with a range of 5 – 99 years or life in prison, when the burglary is committed with the intent to commit a felony other than theft.
Bradford pleaded guilty to the charges and asked the jury to determine his punishment. After considering all of the evidence, as well as Bradford’s criminal history, the jury assessed punishment at life in prison on each charge.
Judge Richard Davis presided over the trial. Assistant Criminal District Attorneys Brooke Adams and Dewey Mitchell prosecuted the case, assisted by District Attorney Investigator Sarah Putman, and Legal Secretary Jessica Ledbetter.
#####
