Marwan Albataineh, a former UNCW Student, was convicted on Aug. 17 on two felony counts of Voyeurism and one felony count of Breaking and Entering. In addition to 48 months of probation, Albataineh is permanently barred from UNCW’s campus. Other conditions of his probation prohibit him from using the Internet or video recording equipment, require him to serve community service hours and to register with North Carolina’s Sex Offender & Public Protection Registry, which includes submitting a DNA sample.

This conviction “speaks to the great cooperation of law enforcement agencies that exists in this community,” UNCW Chief of Police David M. Donaldson said.

Albataineh was apprehended on Aug. 22, 2004, after UNCW police received a complaint from a female student who saw Albataineh videotaping her in a Friday Hall bathroom. Although this was the second call regarding a peeping Tom that authorities had received, the amount of footage on the confiscated video recorder lead authorities to believe that Albataineh had been preying on unsuspecting females for approximately two months. He also broke into a woman’s off-campus apartment in efforts to record her within the privacy of her own home.

Technological advances have severely increased not only the frequency of “peeping,” but also the magnitude of these types of offenses. With this heightened threat to people’s privacy it has become increasingly important to pay attention to one’s surroundings.

“It’s pretty disturbing that we have to live in fear of perversion even in the most private situations of our lives,” senior Allison McKiernan said.

Particularly in the area of sexual offenses, it is extremely important to promptly report the incident because the pattern of behavior tends to escalate. Protecting oneself from voyeurism and other forms of assaults in general “begins with awareness and knowing what your resources are, in this case one brave victim’s willingness to promptly report the incident prevented future victims,” Donaldson said.