Video Voyeur Gets 10 Years in Prison
 

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ht..._voyeur15m.html

Voyeur gets 10-year-plus term

EVERETT ? The Lynnwood woman's voice broke when she described how she was unwittingly caught on videotape while alone in her apartment.
Phillip Kraus had been standing outside her window when he filmed her wearing only a T-shirt and thong underwear. She had no idea his camera was peering at her through a single blind that had been flipped open.

"My life has changed as a result of his obsession," the woman said yesterday in Snohomish County Superior Court.

Kraus was sentenced to slightly more than 10 years in prison for two counts of voyeurism and one count each of dealing in dhahahahations of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct, taking indecent liberties, manufacturing a controlled substance and violating a domestic-violence protection order.

The woman, whom police were able to identify because her T-shirt bore the name of the company where she works, has since moved to another apartment. She has hung thick curtains from her windows as protection.

She is one of more than 100 men, women and children whom Kraus filmed in various stages of undress. Some were even filmed while they were having sex.

Police confiscated more than 100 videotapes from his Lynnwood home following his arrest last fall. But because of the camera angles and a lack of ways to distinguish identities, only a handful of people filmed have been identified.

Deputy Prosecutor Lisa Paul said that Kraus, 40, rode around on a bicycle at night, filming through cracks in blinds or uncovered windows.

"This is probably the most outrageous case of lawlessness and victimization I've ever seen," said Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Richard Thorpe. "Only a miracle worker or incarceration will keep you from reoffending in the future."

Thorpe denied Kraus' request for a 22-month prison sentence and enrollment in a sexual-deviancy-treatment program. The judge also sentenced Kraus to six years of probation.

Lynnwood police Sgt. Steve Rider said Kraus needed a lengthy time behind bars because "he struck panic in the hearts of a lot of people."

Rider said that when he arrested Kraus in October, the painter claimed he was conducting a study on what women do when they don't think they are being watched.

"He told me that treatment doesn't work on him," Rider said.

"He told me it (peeping through windows) started when he was a teenager."

Kraus was also sentenced for possession of 68 marijuana plants, drug paraphernalia and marijuana-growing equipment, all of which police found inside his house.