Press Release  Valdeir Aguiar Do Nasciemento Conviction Upheld

Cape and Islands — District Attorney Michael O’Keefe announced today that on June 7, 2017, the Massachusetts Appeals Court issued a published opinion upholding the conviction of Valdeir Aguiar Do Nasciemento, DOB 1/24/1966, of Hyannis, for two counts of “Photographing the Sexual or Intimate Parts of a Child” under G.L. c. 272 §105. 

   After a two day trial in Nantucket District Court, the defendant was sentenced to one year concurrent on each count of “Photographing the Sexual or Intimate Parts of a Child.”

   The charges stem from an incident in 2015 when the defendant used his cellphone to videotape surreptitiously two teenage girls under their sundresses while traveling on the ferry to Nantucket. 

   The defendant challenged the amended “upskirting” statute,  G. L. c. 272, § 105, claiming that “because no reasonable person would believe his or her clothed anatomy would not be visible in a public place, the statute must be limited to non-public spaces.”  The statute was rewritten in 2014, after the Supreme Judicial Court held the original statute G.L. c. 272 §105, only applied to “nude or partially nude” individuals, in the decision of Commonwealth v. Robertson. 

   The Court said, in an opinion written by Justice Wolohojian, it is an “‘eminently reasonable’ proposition ‘that a woman, and in particular a woman riding on a public trolley, has a reasonable expectation of privacy in not having a stranger secretly take photographs up her skirt.’ The same is true for teenage girls riding the ferry to Nantucket.”

   The case was investigated by the Massachusetts State Police.   

   The trial proceedings were handled by Assistant District Attorney Michael Patterson, and Assistant District Attorney Catherine Robertson wrote the brief and argued the case at the Massachusetts Appeals Court.

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