DECC Security Guard Charged After Recording Teen
The security guard is also charged with recording young women in his neighborhood
DULUTH, Minn. – A now former security guard has been charged with sexual harassment for recording a teen girl while she was using a private fitness facility at the DECC; and that wasn’t his first time.
According to a criminal complaint filed Saturday, 62-year-old security guard Perry Michael Burke used his phone to record a 17-year-old girl while she was exercising at a DECC fitness facility.
The girl, who is the daughter of another DECC employee, told her father that she had seen a man watching her work out on December 2 and 10, 2024. A police report was filed, and the father aided the police in accessing surveillance footage from the two dates.
The footage from Dec. 2 shows that the girl was in the gym alone when she arrived. Burke is seen shortly after, bringing a chair to lift himself over the ‘frosted’ part of the gym windows. Cameras capture Burke looking into the gym and scanning his surroundings before masturbating. Burke later follows the girl out of the gym and to the parking lot.
Footage from Dec. 10 shows Burke again using a chair to look into the gym, while he lifts his phone to take photos and record.
On Dec. 13, investigators confronted Burke while he was working his other job. Burke admitted to the accusations, saying he knew he had been seen by the girl. Multiple videos and photos of the girl were found on Burke’s phone when authorities executed a search warrant. Police also found additional recordings of college-aged women, which appeared to be taken from a car. The women were later identified as two 20-year-old female neighbors of Burke.
Burke faces charges in this separate case of surreptitiously recording his two neighbors as far back as June 2024.
When we contacted the DECC for comment, Director of Communication Lucie Amundsen said, “As this is an ongoing police investigation, we cannot comment on it other than we are fully cooperating.” Amundsen said that Burke is no longer employed by the DECC and that all security personnel undergo FBI background checks before hiring.
