{"id":33224,"date":"2026-08-08T21:15:02","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T16:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=33224"},"modified":"2026-08-08T21:15:02","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T16:15:02","slug":"lifeguards-speak-out-against-cal-state-park-official-accused-of-secretly-filming-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=33224","title":{"rendered":"Lifeguards speak out against Cal State Park official accused of secretly filming them"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/7ee1cd1\/2147483647\/strip\/false\/crop\/4730x3436+0+0\/resize\/1500x1090!\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fef%2F9f%2F199751bc490096d9611ada1d7c9d%2F1538370-me-free-entry-state-parks-ajs-05.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div data-element=\"story-body\" data-subscriber-content=\"\">\n<p>A former California state parks officer accused of <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2026-06-24\/cal-state-park-superintendent-accused-of-secretly-filming-nude-workers\">secretly recording nearly two dozen men<\/a>, some of whom were minors at the time, inside an employee locker room made his first court appearance Thursday morning. <\/p>\n<p>Kevin Pearsall, 59, of Long Beach, faces five felony counts of eavesdropping, 23 misdemeanor counts of secretly filming another and three misdemeanor counts of unlawful dissemination of private recordings. He faces a maximum sentence of 18 years and eight months in jail.<\/p>\n<p>Pearsall appeared Thursday at the Westminster courthouse and was scheduled to be arraigned, but his arraignment was continued until Sept. 21. He remained out of custody as of Thursday. <\/p>\n<p>Two of Pearsall\u2019s alleged victims attended the hearing and, afterward, expressed feeling  hurt.<\/p>\n<p>The secret recordings took place at the Bolsa Chica State Beach Lifeguard Headquarters and continued for 11 months beginning August 2024, according to the Orange County district attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p>The cameras may have been installed as far back as 2019, and captured images of seasonal lifeguards, including teens as young as 15, according to the lawsuit. Pearsall is also accused of distributing the images to his friends. <\/p>\n<p>The locker room is accessible only to full-time personnel, seasonal lifeguards, office staff, maintenance personnel and park aides, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n<p>Attorney Mark Peacock, who represents seven of the lifeguards who were allegedly abused, four of whom are still minors, said he and his clients were disappointed that Pearsall wasn\u2019t arraigned Thursday. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cNaturally there is an avalanche of emotions, not only for them but for their families,\u201d Peacock said. \u201cThey\u2019re young men who were just starting their lives out. To put on a suit and tie and expect quick and easy justice, when that guy walks out, it just rebirths emotions of \u2018I\u2019m pissed and I can\u2019t believe he did that.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Peacock said it was still unknown how long Pearsall had been allegedly recording the lifeguards. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt may have gone all the way back to 2019. It\u2019s not confirmed yet,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it went that far back, then there\u2019s a good chance there will be more lifeguards popping up.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Attorney Gloria Allred also <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/socal\/daily-pilot\/news\/story\/2026-07-02\/more-victims-of-ex-parks-superintendent-accused-of-filming-nude-lifeguards-sue\" target=\"_blank\">filed a complaint<\/a> in Orange County Superior Court on behalf of three alleged victims, two of whom spoke out about what they described as the \u201cultimate betrayal of trust.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Matthew Dawson and Richard Corey are senior park aides who worked as lifeguards under Pearsall.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe best word to describe it is \u2018absolute betrayal,\u2019\u201d Corey told KTLA outside the courtroom Monday. \u201cHe\u2019s a sworn peace officer. Your boss is a peace officer. That\u2019s like the highest level of trust, so to find this out, it hurts. It\u2019s painful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dawson, a former lifeguard at Bolsa Chica State Beach, also spoke outside the courthouse Monday. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was just a safe place for us to change. And he betrayed our trust,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A former California state parks officer accused of secretly recording nearly two dozen men, some of whom were minors at the time, inside an employee locker room made his first court appearance Thursday morning. Kevin Pearsall, 59, of Long Beach, faces five felony counts of eavesdropping, 23 misdemeanor counts of secretly filming another and three&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/a9023e5\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/4730x2483+0+476\/resize\/1200x630!\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fef%2F9f%2F199751bc490096d9611ada1d7c9d%2F1538370-me-free-entry-state-parks-ajs-05.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}