PEABODY — The Middlesex District Attorney’s office is encouraging patients of chiropractor Scott Kline, who allegedly installed a hidden camera inside the bathroom of his office, who believe they may have been surveilled without their consent to come forward and report their experiences with the launch of a new tip line.
Those contacting the tip line at 781-897-6725 should leave their name, date of birth, phone number, and when they were at Kline’s business, Back on Track. Kline, 44, of Middleton, was arraigned on July 18 on a charge of photographing an unsuspecting nude person, with his bail set at $10,000.
A police report filed in Peabody District Court revealed new details about the case.
The Police Department was alerted to the presence of what appeared to be a hidden camera in Kline’s office on July 14, when a client, whose name is redacted from the report, noticed a black plastic coat-hook hanging on the wall next to the toilet tank. The patient, who thought the hook “looked out of place,” took a closer look and discovered a blue light on the side of the hanger.
The patient was able to remove the hanger from the wall, where it was attached with a Velcro strip police noted was “worn and dirty, as if it has been removed and reattached frequently,” and upon further inspection saw a USB port, an SD card, and an on/off switch. After discovering the apparent hidden camera, the patient took several photos and videos of it.
The patient did not take the device, telling police he put it back and left.
Later, when the patient decided to go back to the office to retrieve the camera, it was gone.
The patient’s father confronted Kline with the video around 5 p.m. on July 14, telling police that Kline, upon seeing the video, began to beg him not to do anything with it.
“Please, please don’t do anything, I have a family,” Kline allegedly said, before asking “How can we fix this situation?” and “What can we do to make it right?”
But, according to the report, Kline never denied the allegation during the conversation with the patient’s father. Kline never seemed “unaware of what [redacted] was talking about,” the report said.
While the patient and his father were being interviewed by police, Kline allegedly repeatedly texted them in an apparent attempt to cover his tracks.
“What I wanted to mention to you was that was only being used as a hook and nothing more,” one of the alleged messages reads, according to the report.
“Just wanted you to rest assured that if you look at your video you took. U will see that it was just used a regular hook there was no power or ability to stream or save anything so not illegal,” another alleged message reads.
Based on the messages and the accounts from the patient and his father, police conducted a search of Back on Track, which is located on Chestnut Street, where they found a red and blue stocking containing homemade labeled CDs in a box on Kline’s desk, three hard drives in his office, two iPhones in the filing cabinet in the reception office, and other technology.
During a search of Kline’s office, police found the alleged hidden camera that had been removed from the bathroom inside a fireproof bag inside a locked drawer. Officers also found an encrypted USB flash drive in the drawer.
Items analyzed on scene by police were found to “have an extensive pornography collection …. There were hundreds of homemade images and videos of many women in different stages of undress … Kline can be seen in some of the photos as well,” the report says. “We also discovered a list of 117 women that included their names, ages, number of sexual encounters, and comments about their performance in the encounters.”
“It appears in some of the photos that [Kline] was engaging in these sexual encounters at his place of business,” the report goes on to state.
Police determined the pictures progressed into “what appeared to be consensual encounters” and opted to leave the drives at Kline’s office.
During an interview with police conducted while the search was ongoing, Kline allegedly admitted to placing the camera in the bathroom. He referred to it as a “hook” and drew a diagram of the bathroom indicating where he placed it.
“Kline was very persistent that it was just a hook he used to hold a toilet brush and was not used as a camera,” police wrote.
But, officers observed a second toilet brush inside the bathroom that was stored in a “common toilet-brush holder” on the floor.
“The brush hanging from the hidden spy-camera device appears to be an attempt to camouflage the device,” the report reads.
During his interview, Kline allegedly told police he purchased the cameras but none of them worked, and he brought one into his office solely to use as a hook. He also allegedly admitted to destroying the camera in the bathroom, telling police he purchased three cameras in total.
When confronted with the presence of a fourth camera, Kline offered little explanation to police, the report says. He also failed to offer an explanation for why the camera had been removed from the wall by the time the patient returned to the bathroom, police said.
Kline will return to court on Aug. 29 for a pretrial conference.
