A former State Department official was ordered to serve 32 months in prison Wednesday for nearly a dozen charges of voyeurism and stalking after recording as many as 25 women in their homes around Northwest D.C.
Daniel Rosen, a former counterterrorism official, pleaded guilty July 29 to six counts of voyeurism and five counts of stalking that happened between 2012 and 2014.
He was sentenced Wednesday to 11 years in prison, with all but 32 months suspended. He was also ordered to complete five years of probation after his release.
Prosecutors say Rosen, 45, recorded women who lived in basement-level apartments that faced back alleys or hard-to-access areas in Adams Morgan, Mount Pleasant and around U Street.
Videos show the victims in their bathrooms and bedrooms, while having sex, using Facetime, performing personal hygiene and engaging in other private moments. Some of the victims had their blinds or curtains closed, but Rosen angled his cellphone between the cracks or small openings to record video, prosecutors said.
Rosen sometimes filmed the women while walking his dog, authorities said.
In court, prosecutors listed as many as 25 victims whom Rosen recorded over multiple years, some for up to 10 minutes at a time. The women in the videos appear to be older than 18, police said.
Rosen returned to some victims' homes more than once, they said.
"Daniel Rosen trawled city neighborhoods in the late-night hours, sneaking into alleys and aiming his camera into the windows of women who had no idea they were being recorded," said U.S. Attorney Channing Phillips. "This sexual exploitation and invasion of privacy took place over a period of years and shattered the victims' sense of safety and security."
Rosen's lawyer said in July that his client was getting treatment for being a sexual deviant.
Rosen had worked as a counterterrorism official at the State Department. He was placed on unpaid administrative leave before pleading guilty, but his attorney said after the guilty plea that Rosen realized that his career was over with the department.
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The videos came to light after Rosen was charged in February in Virginia with soliciting a minor online after communicating with a detective in Fairfax County, Virginia, who was posing as a 14-year-old girl.
After Rosen's arrest in the Virginia case, a search of his cellphone revealed multiple videos of women that were recorded without their consent. He was then arrested in D.C. on the voyeurism and stalking charges.
Police found one victim by using geolocation data. She was recorded in her Mount Pleasant bedroom in July 2013. The victim identified herself in four separate clips taken over several minutes, according to a criminal complaint.
She was shown in the videos undressing and changing clothes; at times she was naked, the document says. The document said the victim's bedroom window can only be accessed through an alley behind the apartment and down several stairs.
Another victim was shown on video on three separate days in December 2014 while showering and grooming in her bathroom, according to the document.
