{"id":476346,"date":"2026-09-26T10:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T10:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/476346\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T10:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T10:26:10","slug":"cell-phone-repair-turns-into-privacy-lawsuit-after-teens-intimate-videos-allegedly-shared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/476346\/","title":{"rendered":"Cell phone repair turns into privacy lawsuit after teen’s intimate videos allegedly shared"},"content":{"rendered":"

A simple cellphone repair has now turned into a disturbing privacy lawsuit. A former Fresno cellphone technician is accused of accessing and sharing intimate videos from a teenage customer’s phone while repairing it.<\/p>\n

But what’s raising even more questions is that the same technician was among the men arrested in Operation Boogeyman, a 2023 undercover law-enforcement operation<\/a> targeting people accused of trying to arrange sexual encounters with minors.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit was filed in Fresno County Superior Court and alleges a repair technician accessed two intimate videos of a 17-year-old on her iPhone, then sent those videos to two different phone numbers.<\/p>\n

According to the lawsuit and the teen’s attorney, Benjamin Drake, with Drake Law Firm, the teenager dropped off her phone at a Fresno CellPros location on May 16th for a battery repair.<\/p>\n

Drake says the teen discovered messages being sent from her phone through a laptop connected to her iCloud account.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe noticed it through her iCloud being synced with her phone that there are text messages being sent out. So, she responds right then and there, and she uses colorful words saying…. as if what is going on and that person responds back, say don’t text me,\u201d Drake said.<\/p>\n

According to the lawsuit, the teen’s father later confronted the worker, identified as Desmond Devon Fitzgerald, who allegedly acknowledged sending the footage.<\/p>\n

\"Cell<\/p>\n

Cell phone repair turns into privacy lawsuit after teen’s intimate videos allegedly shared. (Photo: FCSO)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s quite concerning because had my client not been in front of her laptop, she would have never found out,\u201d Drake said.<\/p>\n

That, Drake says, raises a bigger question: How often has this happened, and could other customers have had their private information accessed without knowing it?<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cThe question is how often has this happened, whether at this or others, but this story in particular, had it happen before, how many customers had this happen to, and whether or not any other private information of our client was shared that we don’t know about.” <\/p>\n

Drake says they learned Fitzgerald also had a pending criminal case stemming from a 2023 undercover operation involving alleged sexual communications with minors.<\/p>\n

Fitzgerald was among several people arrested during Operation Boogeyman. He was later criminally charged in Fresno Superior Court in November 2023 with unlawful communication with a minor, attempted lewd act on a child and attempting to meet with a minor.<\/p>\n

\"Cell<\/p>\n

Cell phone repair turns into privacy lawsuit after teen’s intimate videos allegedly shared. (Photo: FCSO)<\/p>\n

Fitzgerald is not the only one being sued in this case.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit also names CellPros, alleging the company was negligent in hiring, retaining and supervising the technician.<\/p>\n

Drake says a simple Google search or background check could have revealed Fitzgerald’s pending criminal case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re responsible for their employee’s wrongdoing no matter what. What extremely upsets me and what is so devastating in this case is that at the very least with this individual employee, this was avoidable,\u201d Drake said<\/p>\n

We reached out to CellPros for comment.<\/p>\n

It told FOX26, “Cellpros LLC maintains a strict zero-tolerance policy for any compromise of customer privacy or trust. The alleged rogue actions of former employee Desmond Fitzgerald represent a total betrayal of our company\u2019s core values, operational guidelines, and the Fresno community we proudly serve. Prior to this occurrence, Cellpros has had no history of customer data privacy complaints or incidents across any of our locations.<\/p>\n

Cellpros had no prior knowledge of Mr. Fitzgerald\u2019s pending legal matters outside of work at the time of his employment, as standard pre-employment screening at that time focused on direct professional reference and prior employer verifications. Upon learning of the incident, Cellpros management took immediate action by terminating Mr. Fitzgerald\u2019s employment for cause, permanently banning him from our premises, and cooperating fully and transparently with law enforcement throughout their investigation.”<\/p>\n

We also spoke with Jesse Molina, a Fresno-area attorney at Valley Business & Tech Law, who specializes in data privacy law, for an outside perspective on what customers should expect when they hand over a device containing sensitive information.<\/p>\n

Molina is also a law professor and teaches Corporations Law and Data Privacy Law at San Joaquin College of Law.<\/p>\n

He says customers are allowed to ask a repair technician why they need access to unlock a phone or whether the repair can be done while the customer is present.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s okay to ask hard questions. It’s okay to make them feel a little uncomfortable that you don’t feel completely 100% secure about giving your data and your most trusted pictures and photos to a company and you want to know their practices. And… if they have a problem with that, that’s already a yellow flag,\u201d Molina said.<\/p>\n

Molina says customers should also understand the limits of what they’re authorizing a repair shop to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cA company to fix it is not the authorization to view your phone, its contents. It’s not the authorization to share, disclose. So, that exceeds any level of permission or consent,\u201d Molina said.<\/p>\n

And when it comes to preventing that kind of unauthorized access, Molina says it starts with how companies hire, train and monitor their employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere definitely is potential liability there because when you are giving your device or any type of data, you’re giving it to the business. And the business has agents or employees that are working on its behalf that is under its control and they are directly responsible for the conduct of that employee, of that agent, while they’re working for them,\u201d Molina said.<\/p>\n

He added that a lack of supervision could raise questions about negligent supervision and that hiring practices could also be examined, including whether a background check was conducted and what preliminary measures were taken to ensure an employee could handle sensitive data.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe highest level of sensitivity here is when you’re talking about your phone, especially with minors,\u201d Molina said.<\/p>\n

According to Drake, he says this case is now moving into the discovery phase.<\/p>\n

He says attorneys are investigating what information may have been accessed or shared. <\/p>\n

No trial date has been set yet.<\/p>\n

Drake is also asking any other CellPros customers who may be concerned that their private information was accessed by Fitzgerald to come forward.<\/p>\n

We also reached out to the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office for comment.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson said the office received the case in June, \u201cFollowing review, the matter was not filed at that time, and additional investigative follow-up was requested. I have been advised that we likely will not have an update on whether and when the matter may be resubmitted until next week,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A simple cellphone repair has now turned into a disturbing privacy lawsuit. A former Fresno cellphone technician is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-476346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476346","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=476346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}