Updated at 12:28 p.m., Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Retired Navy officer gets year for videotaping stepdaughters while they were undressing
Advertiser Staff
A retired Navy officer was sentenced to a year in jail this morning for secretly videotaping his stepdaughters while they were undressing.
Robert T. Franks, 49, pleaded guilty to the charge earlier this year and Circuit Judge Michael Town imposed the maximum sentence for the offense.
Town said he may consider releasing Franks from jail after he has served six months of his sentence, but ordered him to complete five years of probation.
Franks’ ex-wife and stepchildren wanted the defendant to be listed on the state’s registry of sex offenders, but Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Leilani Tan said the privacy-violation law does not allow such registration.
“It appears there might be some kind of a loophole” in the law as currently written, Tan said.
She said she will be working with her office on proposing an amendment to the law at the next session of the state Legislature.
But Tan did note that Town ordered Franks to complete sex-offender treatment as part of his sentence.
Franks was featured on the television show “America’s Most Wanted” after he left the jurisdiction to work as a construction manager in Louisiana.
He was arrested there in May 2008 and held on $500,000 bail before being extradited back to Hawaii.
Franks apologized to his family members during today’s court session.
Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20090818/BREAKING01/90818052/Retired+Navy+officer+gets+year+for+videotaping+stepdaughters+while+they+were+undressing
Here’s more from America’s Most Wanted. http://www.amw.com/fugitives/case.cfm?id=54603
In March 2007, the family of 48-year-old Robert Franks made a startling discovery in their home DVD player. On a disc was a video of two of the Franks’ female children undressing. The video looked to be shot unbeknownst to either victim, and seemed to be filmed at different times, on different days. Every scene took place in one of the bathrooms in their home.
When Franks’ wife searched the bathroom, she found a small video camera hidden inside a clock radio. A second DVD of similar footage was also found. Cops say when his wife confronted him, Franks confessed. But it didn’t take long for Robert Franks to leave Hawaii and go on the run.
Hawaiian authorities believed that Franks may be working construction and could be hiding out in Ohio or Louisiana. Franks is described as a white male, 5’9″ tall, weighing 175 lbs., with brown hair and blue eyes.
On May 2, 2008, U.S. Marshals say that Robert Franks was arrested in New Orleans.
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