Orange County prosecutors have arrested and charged a former California state park officer with secretly recording nearly two dozen men inside an employee locker room at a state beach in Huntington Beach.
Kevin Pearsall, 59, of Long Beach, is facing five felony counts of eavesdropping, 23 misdemeanor counts of secretly filming another and three misdemeanor counts of unlawful dissemination of private recordings.
Pearsall turned himself in to authorities amid a $500,000 arrest warrant Tuesday but was released on his own recognizance.
At least one victim, an unnamed sworn lifeguard officer, has filed a civil lawsuit against Pearsall and the California Department of State Parks, alleging sexual harassment, hostile work environment and failure to prevent the illegal behavior.
The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount of general damages for emotional distress and punitive damages.
The secret recordings took place at the Bolsa Chica State Beach Lifeguard Headquarters for 11 months starting August 24, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
The lawsuit alleges that the cameras may have been installed as far back as 2019 and captured images of seasonal lifeguards, including teens as young as 15.
Authorities said the locker room is accessible only to full-time personnel, seasonal lifeguards, office staff, maintenance and park aides.
A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office could not immediately be reached for comment.
The recordings came to light last July when a California state officer discovered a USB camera inside the men’s employee locker room and notified the California Highway Patrol, which launched a probe, according to prosecutors.
Pearsall, who had served as a California State Parks Superintendent from 2023 to 2025, was placed on administrative leave while under investigation. Pearsall was overseeing the management and operations of state parks in the Orange Coast District, including those in Orange County.
During their investigation, state investigators alleged that Pearsall had placed the hidden cameras in the men’s locker room, recording mostly male lifeguards and other workers changing clothes.
Investigators said they identified at least 23 men who unknowingly had their genitals or buttocks filmed by the hidden camera placed in the locker room.
Prosecutors accused Pearsall of sending several of the photographs he recorded of nude or partially nude men in the locker room to two men, and making sexually charged comments about his employees’ genitals.
“Instead of protecting his employees, Pearsall used his position to spy on the men who worked for him while they were in the place where they should have been the safest and then share those intimate images of his victims,” said Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer. “These victims had their privacy violated in such a disgusting way, and we will do everything we can to ensure they receive the justice they deserve.”
Ron Zambrano, an attorney who filed the civil lawsuit on behalf of his unnamed client, alleged in the lawsuit that Pearsall encouraged his client and other victims to change in the building known as the “back lockers” where they would have more privacy, unaware of the hidden cameras placed there.
“Pearsall took advantage of his position to subject my client to appalling voyeurism because California State Parks did not adequately look into red flags indicating he was a problem supervisor,” he said in a news release.
Zambrano alleged in the lawsuit that employees believed Pearsall had been the subject of other investigations into alleged embezzlement.
Employees connected a raid at the Bolsa Chica Lifeguard Headquarters in July to those allegations because investigators seized computers, according to the lawsuit.
It took months before Zambrano’s client learned the raid was instead part of an investigation into alleged hidden cameras. Earlier this year, according to the lawsuit, the victim was told he was among those who were secretly recorded.
“For the first six months after being identified as a victim, plaintiff received virtually no communication or support from Internal Affairs or other investigative units, allowing damaging rumors about embezzlement and hidden cameras to fester at work,” the lawsuit alleged.
