Arraignment was postponed Thursday for a former state parks superintendent accused of recording naked lifeguards at a Bolsa Chica State Beach locker room.<\/p>\n
Kevin Pearsall, 59, of Long Beach, is charged with five felony counts of eavesdropping, 23 misdemeanor counts of secretly filming another and three misdemeanor counts of unlawful dissemination of private recordings, according to the Orange County district attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
The alleged offenses occurred in the men\u2019s locker room at Bolsa Chica Lifeguard Headquarters and victimized 23 lifeguards and other workers, none of whom consented to being recorded, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Pearsall\u2019s arraignment was rescheduled for Sept. 21.<\/p>\n
After the hearing, two of the alleged victims spoke out about seeing their former boss for the first time since the allegations surfaced.<\/p>\n
Park aides and lifeguards Richard Corey and Matthew Dawson joined multiple other co-workers who attended the hearing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw Kevin today in the hallway,\u2019\u2019 Dawson told reporters. \u201cWhen he walked past me my stomach dropped … I saw him smiling … This is not a joke … To me, it\u2019s obviously another game for him.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Corey also noticed Pearsall\u2019s smile. \u201cIt\u2019s already a betrayal, it already hurts, but who does that? The whole thing is messed up and hurts.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Dawson and Corey said they were encouraged to show up to work in plain clothes and then change into their uniforms in the locker room because they looked too much like law enforcement officers.<\/p>\n
When state officials told them about the investigation, the lifeguards went through a variety of reactions, Corey said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was anger, sadness, betrayal,\u2019\u2019 Corey said. \u201cIt was a wild day.\u2019\u2019 <\/p>\n
He said since Pearsall was a sworn officer, \u201cit was the highest level of betrayal.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Corey said it was unsettling that some of the videos were passed on to others.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat give you a lot of anxiety,\u2019\u2019 Corey said. \u201cWe don\u2019t know how many people he\u2019s disseminated (the videos) to.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Newport Beach attorney Mark Peacock, who represents seven lifeguards, said his clients are on edge about the case. <\/p>\n
Four of his clients were underage when they were filmed, he said.<\/p>\n
Some of Peacock\u2019s clients attended the hearing wearing red ties for solidarity.<\/p>\n
Peacock said his clients also fear what happened with the videos.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere are all the photos and videos?\u2019\u2019 Peacock asked. \u201cDid they make their way to the dark web? You can fill in the blank how horrific that is.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve talked to the clients\u2019 parents and I have emotional people on hand and they\u2019re terrified. A couple of them have said to me that they\u2019ve tried to do everything right and this happens.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Attorney Gloria Allred now represents nine alleged victims, including Dawson and Corey. She expects to file another lawsuit on behalf of her new clients soon.<\/p>\n
According to the district attorney\u2019s office, the case stems from the discovery in July 2025 of a USB memory stick data storage device with a hidden camera in the men\u2019s employee locker room at the lifeguard headquarters.<\/p>\n
State parks officials reviewed the content on the device and contacted the California Highway Patrol, which conducted an investigation that revealed Pearsall allegedly \u201cwas responsible for placing hidden cameras in the locker room, which recorded both audio and video, and using the hidden cameras to record numerous videos over an 11-month period beginning in August 2024,\u2019\u2019 according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n
Pearsall served as a California State Parks superintendent from 2023-25, a sworn law enforcement position overseeing the management and operations of state parks in the Orange Coast District, according to the D.A.\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Pearsall is accused of sending images of nude or partially nude men in the locker room to two men, and making sexually charged comments about the victims\u2019 anatomy.<\/p>\n
One of the alleged victims filed a lawsuit in June in Orange County Superior Court alleging hostile work environment harassment, sexual harassment and failure to prevent and remedy.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy client is shocked, devastated … wrapped up in betrayal,\u2019\u2019 attorney Ron Zambrano said. \u201cHe looked up to Pearsall as a mentor.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The man began work as a seasonal lifeguard in 2018 and became a full-time employee in April 2022, Zambrano said.<\/p>\n
The man at first had one of the lockers near the front door as part of the dues lifeguards pay to earn a more desirable locker further back, Zambrano said.<\/p>\n
But Pearsall, under the guise of praising the man\u2019s work, gave him a better locker, Zambrano said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it also happened to be a better angle for the camera,\u2019\u2019 the attorney alleged.<\/p>\n
Underage junior lifeguards also used the locker room, but it\u2019s unclear if they were also filmed, Zambrano said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned directly from one of the investigators this could have been happening as early as 2019,\u2019\u2019 he said, adding that Pearsall appears to have retired in July 2025 when the first search warrant was executed.<\/p>\n
Pearsall faces up to 18 years and eight months behind bars if convicted on all counts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arraignment was postponed Thursday for a former state parks superintendent accused of recording naked lifeguards at a Bolsa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[3623,84954,8533,129655,151345,151343,103893,28955,131,133,132,1555,155202,346,7827,2601,5050,169731],"class_list":["post-425816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-arraignment","tag-betrayal","tag-client","tag-corey","tag-hidden-camera","tag-kevin-pearsall","tag-lifeguard","tag-locker-room","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-man","tag-matthew-dawson","tag-office","tag-state-official","tag-victim","tag-video","tag-zambrano"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}