A civil lawsuit against a Fresno cell phone repair company alleges one of its technicians — a man previously accused of soliciting a minor — distributed “intimate sexual” videos he accessed in May from an underage female customer’s iPhone.
The complaint filed last month in Fresno County Superior Court accuses Desmond Devon Fitzgerald of accessing the images in May, while he worked at Cellpros phone repair shop at 5211 E. Kings Canyon Rd. Fitzgerald is accused in the complaint of using the girl’s phone to send the images to his own phone number and to another phone number whose owner has not yet been identified.
“Janie Doe,” a pseudonym used to protect the girl’s identity, is suing Fitzgerald, Cellpros, LLC, and company owners Antony Ayodele, Yamrot Tadesse and Rudolpho Tobias Michel. The complaint accuses the owners and company of creating an “unsupervised” environment that allowed Fitzgerald to violate the minor’s privacy, as his prior arrest was public information.
“In entrusting her phone to the Defendants here for a simple repair, Cellpros forever took away her honor,” the complaint says.
Ayodele emailed a statement to The Bee on behalf of Cellpros that says the company did not know about Fitzgerald’s prior charges and that it fired him immediately after learning of the new allegations. The company says it has since implemented major policy changes, including strict background checks for employees and tightened security for customers’ devices.
“The alleged rogue actions of former employee Desmond Fitzgerald represent a total betrayal of our company’s core values, operational guidelines, and the Fresno community we proudly serve,” the statement says.
Fitzgerald was arrested in 2023 during “Operation Boogeyman,” a multi-agency undercover sting targeting adults who solicited minors for sex online. A felony criminal case against Fitzgerald that followed the operation is still open and set for jury trial Oct. 12.
The Fresno Police Department confirmed Thursday that Fitzgerald was again arrested in June following the alleged cell phone shop incident, but he was released and has not been criminally charged for that. Fitzgerald told The Bee on Thursday he denies all allegations against him in the 2023 and May incidents and that the recent civil suit against him and the cell repair shop is riddled with falsehoods.
“I don’t know if the family is trying to get money or anything because, sure, you can look me up on Google and find me there,” he said.
Fresno County Superior Courthouse, 1100 Van Ness Ave, Fresno on March 2, 2021. JOHN WALKER FRESNO BEE FILE Details of lawsuit against Fresno cell repair shop
Doe’s cell phone needed a battery repair and was dropped off May 16 at the Cellpros shop on Kings Canyon Road, where it remained for a little over two hours, the complaint alleges. In that time, the phone was repaired and then two “intimate video recordings” depicting Doe were sent to two phone numbers before her father picked up the device from the shop, the complaint alleges.
Despite not having her phone, Doe noticed the messages because she was connected to her iCloud through her Apple MacBook, says Benjamin Drake, one of Doe’s attorneys. Doe told her father, and he returned to the shop to confront Fitzgerald, who allegedly later confessed to Doe’s father that one of the numbers the videos had been sent to belonged to him, according to the complaint.
Fitzgerald claimed he didn’t know who the second number belonged to, the complaint alleges. Drake told The Bee that number’s owner has not yet been identified.
“That’s the scary part,” Drake said. “Our suspicion is it might have gone through to the black market or some black sites … and has been transmitted multiple times.”
He added that the impact to Doe and her family is “difficult to put into words.”
“This is a young minor who now has her private pictures — pictures nobody would want anybody to have — disseminated,” Drake said. “She has no idea who has it, who can potentially use it against her, her reputation, her future.”
Germain Labat, another of Doe’s attorneys, said the extent to which the girl’s data was taken also remains unknown.
“These people have the ability not only to invade our privacy at every level, but to pull off full identity theft,” Labat said of cell phone repair workers in general.
Fresno cell repair shop says it made major changes
In its emailed statement, Cellpros said it maintains a “strict zero-tolerance policy for any compromise of customer privacy or trust.” (Read the full statement here.)
The company, which has multiple locations in Fresno, said that prior to the allegations against Fitzgerald it had no history of customer data privacy problems.
The company said it did not know about Fitzgerald’s open criminal case from 2023 because, when he was hired, Cellpros’ pre-employment screening was based on “direct professional reference and prior employer verifications.” Fitzgerald was fired “for cause” when the company learned of the May alleged incident and banned from all locations, Cellpros said.
The company says it has implemented the following policy changes for customers’ safety:
Exclusively using charging docks with physically disabled data pins to prevent technical data extraction during charging, establishing mandatory dual-custody device storage, restricting passcode collection to real-time counter verifications only and installing upgraded workbench camera surveillance.Mandated comprehensive criminal background checks — including federal, state, county, and sex offender registry screens — for all prospective employees. A retroactive background audit has also been initiated across all current personnel.
“One person’s unacceptable actions — a total betrayal of our core values and your trust — do not define who we are, nor should they erase 15 years of dedicated service to Fresno,” the company said.
Accused former cell repair worker denies allegations
Fitzgerald told The Bee he talked to Doe’s father outside the repair shop when confronted, but was “confused (about) what was going on.”
He denied ever admitting one of the phone numbers that received videos of Doe belonged to him. Fitzgerald said Doe’s father only mentioned one phone number when they talked, and that it was not his.
“I showed them through my entire phone, and there was nothing on there,” he said.
Fitzgerald claims Cellpros fired him because of his prior arrest in 2023 and not because of the alleged incident involving Doe’s phone. He added that he cooperated with the company, surrendered his devices and nothing was found on them. Fitzgerald also says police in June “let me out because there was nothing found on any of my devices.”
Taylor Long, spokesperson for the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office, said in an email that “additional investigative follow-up was requested” following Fitzgerald’s June arrest.
“The matter remains subject to evaluation as additional information becomes available,” Long said.
This story was originally published September 25, 2026 at 12:42 PM.
Related Stories from Fresno Bee