I would say he has sullied the name Robert E. Lee, but someone beat him to it.

@GreatCaesarsGhost: that's not fair - you should really read about the life of general lee, his torn allegiances, his military prowess, his love of the men under his command, his heartbreak at their sacrifices.

it's quite an interesting history lesson & his story is shared by thousands of others during the time period. he was a virginia man & although he opposed secession, he also felt compelled to serve when the CSA was formed.

@GreatCaesarsGhost: Genius. Well done :o)

So an employee does something of his own actions and you guys bring the ENTIRE company into it?

I don't know how I feel about, I'm not sure where Sears falls at fault here.

@exkon: Sure, it's the American way!

@exkon: Obviously they're at fault for hiring the guy... *rolls eyes* Was what this single employee did repulsive? Yes. Was Sears, as a whole, inherently at fault... Not so much.

@ganzhimself: @exkon: Ordinarily, I'd agree with you. But masturbation stations above the ladies changing rooms is included in all Sears and KMart planograms.

@KyleOrton:
Well, in that case...

@exkon: From the article:

Naming Sears as a co-defendant also is warranted, Marcus says: "Sears has to monitor their employees. You can't turn a blind eye to what your employees are doing and it was obvious this had been going on for a while."

Naming the employer in a civil suit is pretty much standard. And I don't think it's unreasonabl, since the employee was on the clock and was an agent of the store, and you can reasonably argue that Sears corporate had not adequately supervised this manager and did not have instiutional control.

So this clearly isn't the *softer* side of Sears.

Of course, what they fail to mention is the dark room where all of the "loss control" agents have habitually masturbated to the video of secret cams to ensure no one is "stealing"

@KyleOrton: Yeah. There's no way other employees didn't know something was up. How do you hide an entire peeping tom room? And didn't someone think it was weird when the guy goes AWOL at work? And presumably smells like jizz?

I've always been scared of being peeped in a dressing room since I saw this one episode of "Good Times" in which Willona gets a job at a store, and her job is to watch women try on clothes to make sure nobody steals anything.

I thought I was being paranoid, but now I feel vindicated. At least Willona wasn't exploiting the situation like this perv though.

@exkon: Sears fault is that it's Sears.

Also, the Sears catalog may have had something to do with this depending on where this guy grew up. ;)

Someone get Carl Monday on the case.

How disturbing. I don't put much blame on Sears though. LOTS of people have weird sexual issues these days it seems. How could they have known unless he was already a registered sex offender?

@Fujikopez: Yeah, I'm kinda curious how the manager could have set up a peeping hutch on his own or without other employees noticing.

Sears is pretty fucking liable, I think.

@Fujikopez: You do realize that my screen name will now show up in the same paragraph as jizz. Thanks a lot!

In any event, he IS a retail manager. Any I've known disappear quite frequently for one thing or another and at least one smelled like... oh...

@Pro-Pain: I put some blame on Sears. They provide a room in which people take their clothes off. In this day and age when miniature wireless cameras can be obtained fairly easily, I would expect a responsible company to periodically inspect their changing rooms.

@Pro-Pain: I don't know, surely a store manager has a boss supervising him, right? Sears may not have known that Robert E. Lee was a peeping tom, but it is responsible for maintaining a professional working environment.

This is the sort of thing that is both outlandish AND plays on common fears enough that it sounds like an urban legend ("I heard that at this one Sears..."), but apparently is not. What a creep.

FYI: Kohl's has people monitoring the dressing rooms all the time..apparently it is legal if the same sex is monitoring. I know a person (female) who got busted that way.

gross.

@KyleOrton: You're forgetting, though, that Sears spun off their Voyeurism division into a separate company.

Jeers for Sears.

It's even worse that a young child was victimized.

It seems to me that Sears DOES have some culpability here. They should have known about the room - it is, after all, on their property.

Does the K in K-Mart stand for KY gel?

Robert E. Lee must be rolling in his grave seeing this dude with the same name plastered all over the headlines.

If he was alone, acting alone, how could Sears be responsible for anything other than hiring him. Sears responsibility lies in frequent inspections of the area around the dressing rooms? C'mon...

lol @ mastabatorium

Yeah, IF this "service" area was stocked with porno mags & had evidence of previous "use" then i dont see how this was kept a secret from other employees. Sears is lible for what their employees do.

@Rode2008: You're so not gellin'

@Sucko-T: Go O-o-ooo-OOOoooh-hio State!

it's pedobear

@Pro-Pain: Sears is responsible to provide a safe place to shop. They are also responsible to ensure that their employees (including management) are properly supervised, so as to prevent the commission of felonies by their employees on their property.

oh, and while we are on the subject of mastabatoriums at the workplace..... back in my security guard days I once filled in a few nights at a electrical power station/yard that was basically a fenced in yard with a powerstation, utility trucks & a tiny guardshack about the size of a telephone booth. Had a chair & two shelves under the counter & thats it. ANd the second shelf was just jam-packed with the largest amount of nudie mags I have ever seen in one place! I didnt want to touch a thing in that guardshack & spent most of my time making rounds outside.

Masturbation station? Is that where all the pervs on public transit think they are going?

Hot Damn.

Why in hell isn't Bobby the perv from VA doing time in a prison with many bars of soap laying around on the floor?

@BigElectricCat: Best. Comment. Ever.

@mbz32190:

Kohl's has cameras fixed on the enterance to each fitting room so they can see what you go in and come out with, but nothing in the actual fitting room.

@GreatCaesarsGhost: I wouldn't say that. Robert E. Lee was a traitor, made war on his country, and should have been hanged for it like other traitors are.

@mikelotus:
Oh and at Gettysburg, he showed how over rated he was with Stonewall no longer at his side. He fought to defend slavery whether or not that was his motivation, it was his reality. General Thomas from Virginia managed to place country ahead of state. Let's not glorify someone that had to be put down like a dog by Grant.

'...police officials recovered sexually explicit magazines..."
(i.e. the Women's Section of the Sears Catalog)

@Threadtrend: I swear, that ep of Good Times was the 1st thing I thought of as well after reading this disgusting story. That and the L&O SVU ep where this guy had a spy cam in the women's bathroom (Ugh...)

There's no telling how many females this creep spied on. May he get his just deserts being a booty boy in jail as well as being registered as a sex offender.

Ceiling cat, is that you? Oh no!

Also - I had no idea Sears has a Room of Requirement. Fascinating.

@xl22k: At my local Kohl's, a friend who works there says those cameras you mention haven't worked in years.

@spinachdip: The store manager's boss probably isn't in the store frequently, and wouldn't concern her/himself with investigating the possibility of illicit backrooms if s/he were in the store.

And who really would have access to, and know all the ins and outs of a retail store except a general manager? The grunt employees show up, punch in the break room, work, and go home. They don't have the authority, time or wherewithal to spelunk the regions above the dressing rooms. Nobody else really has the access and is unsupervised enough to be able to do this...except maybe a security person.

I bet people do this a lot more often than you think. I actually know someone who did this once, got caught and fired from a health club.

@ChuckECheese: I specifically did not mention doing check-ups on the store, since I don't think it's reasonable for corporate to make frequent masturbatorium inspections.

You might notice that my comments are more about the environment and the culture of the store. Sears enabled a culture in which something that should have been blatantly obvious as a fully-outfitted masturbatorium to go unnoticed or unreported.

To be clear, I'm not sure if there's anything Sears could have done. But I'm really playing devil's advocate here, trying to point out that it's not completely unfair to put some of the responsibility on Sears. Ultimately, it happened on their property and on their dime, by a guy they hired. It's partly their mess (ew!) to clean up.

Screw the little girl, what about the kittens? Won't somebody think of the kittens?

@spinachdip: I utterly agree with throwing down the sue-hammer on Sears in this case. I expect that since the manager was the principal in charge of the store, and he created this eyrie, that he'd better take most of the blame. It gives a whole new meaning to "wickedness in high places."

@ChuckECheese:

Well, its been ages since I worked in a large retail store, but when I did ....being one of the lowest turds on the totem pole.... I knew prettymuch EVERY nook & cranny of the place. Especially the best places to hide from management & customers. The hidden areas were the most interesting IMO.