A Joliet man accused of secretly taking photos of children in a New Lenox Walmart will undergo a fitness evaluation before he is arraigned next month on three felony charges of child photography by a child sex offender.
Paul Raibley, 61, who is a registered sex offender, briefly appeared in Will County Court Thursday, where his attorney Steve Haney asked for a fitness evaluation, saying Raibley attempted suicide twice while in custody of the Will County Jail.
His case was continued until Sept. 30.
Raibley is accused of videotaping young children between the ages of 5 and 10 years old who were shopping in a Walmart, 501 E. Lincoln Highway, with their mother.
Court documents, unsealed Thursday, show a Walmart employee initially found Raibley suspicious on July 2. Documents for sex offender cases can be temporarily sealed until the bill of indictment comes back, often to protect the victims, a spokesman for the Will County state’s attorney’s office said.
The Walmart employee told police she saw a woman in a motorized cart shopping with a young girl on July 2, when a man put a small device under the girl’s skirt when she wasn’t paying attention, court documents said. The employee yelled, “Hey what are you doing,” to Raibley and he walked out of the store, court documents said.
The Walmart employee followed him and watched him drive away.
The employee noted Raibley returned to the store on July 18. The employee began to follow him and advised a co-worker that he was back, court records show.
New Lenox police were called because of a suspicious subject, who possibly had a key fob in his hand and was “taking pictures of children walking by and placing the object in his hand back into his pocket,” according to court records. Employees showed police the store’s surveillance video of Raibley photographing customers, records show.
Police said they had to pry open Raibley’s fist, which revealed a black key fob that appeared to have a lens on one end and tape placed on the top of the buttons, according to court documents.
When police removed his key fob from his hand, Raibley allegedly exhaled and cursed, court documents said.
Detectives obtained a search warrant for Raibley’s key fob and for his cellphone and storage device where they found a “large number of videos taken within the last month,” court documents said.
“Most of the videos appeared to be taken from a hidden camera style device in which they were very shaky and taken in close proximity to adult and juvenile females,” court documents said. “The children were walking with an adult who did not appear to know the children were being recorded.”
Some of the videos appeared to be at Walmart and others at a public pool, court documents said. There were four different “upskirt style videos” that were taken in a retail setting capturing underneath four different female skirts, court documents said.
The black key fob had 12 different files, containing 5- to 19-second videos of an adult woman with three young children. The adult woman told police she did not give her consent for her children to be photographed or videotaped, court records show.
Raibley has a prior federal conviction for production of child pornography, according to Will County court records.
He also has a prior residential burglary case from Mason County in 1998 which was reversed on appeal and dismissed, court records show.
Prosecutors argued last month that there is no condition or combination of conditions that could mitigate the threat to the safety of the community, and Raibley was ordered held in jail.
Michelle Mullins is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.