Wake County will pay more than $140,000 to settle a class-action lawsuit after a county nursing assistant recorded women during medical examinations.
Wake County will pay $142,500 to settle a class-action lawsuit after a county nursing assistant recorded women during medical examinations at county health clinics.
James Perry, the former nursing assistant, secretly photographed and recorded women being weighed and examined as part of pregnancy and prenatal care at county health clinics.
Perry pleaded guilty in 2023 to charges related to his peeping.
He had installed fixed cameras in examination rooms and bathrooms which remained in place from around 2017 to 2021, according to the lawsuit against him and Wake County.
Those cameras livestreamed footage to his phone, and he would also use his phone to take pictures under women’s clothes.
He also took video of a then-17-year-old getting an examination at one of the clinics.
He was only discovered in 2021 after a county employee found his cell phone left in room at a former Sunnybrook Road clinic. When the employee tapped on the phone to see if she could figure out who owned it, she saw livestream video of a women’s bathroom, and police were contacted.
“This type of activity should not occur in our community,” wrote Kristen Beightol, an attorney representing Perry’s victims in the class-action suit, in a statement on Wednesday. “While we are pleased our clients could find resolution, they should not have been inappropriately imaged in the healthcare setting during healthcare appointments. There is much to be done to make our healthcare system safe from predators who seek to take advantage of patients in this way.”
Why the county was sued
The county was sued in 2023, and for almost three years it fought the suit, actually getting it dismissed in Wake Superior Court.
A later appeal of that dismissal in the North Carolina Court of Appeals was also dismissed.
The county argued it had “governmental immunity” — a common defense saying that the government can’t be sued in the course of its regular responsibilities unless a law or other policy is passed that specifically allows suits.
Despite seemingly winning the case, the county agreed to pay half of the $285,000 settlement in the suit.
“The county settled these claims to avoid the high costs and stress that continued litigation could have caused for all involved,” county spokesperson Kate Maroney wrote in a statement to The News & Observer on Wednesday. “Wake County maintains that every action it took in this matter was the prudent course of action and reported these crimes within minutes of learning about them. Neither the county nor any of its other employees were found to have been negligent or violated any law governing this situation.”
Maroney said the county reported the crime to Raleigh police as soon as county employees learned about it
“This former employee painstakingly took actions to hide his illegal behavior and later pleaded guilty to several counts of criminal charges on which he had been indicted,” Maroney wrote.
She added that “Wake County remains committed to providing professional medical care to its patients and clients and to protecting their privacy and confidentiality.”
It was alleged in the suit that Perry saw approximately 20 to 30 patients a day, and over four years, thousands.
He served a sentence in state prison that ended earlier this year and will remain on parole until 2031.
This story was originally published September 9, 2026 at 5:44 PM.