GALETON — An Elkland man is in Potter County Jail, charged with trying to record video in a residential bathroom, without the occupant’s knowledge or consent.

Dylan Abbey, 26, of Elkland, was charged Jan. 25 by Coudersport-based state police after an investigation that started with a complaint from a Potter County resident.

On Jan. 3, a resident of Hector Township contacted state police to say that Abbey had attempted to surreptitiously record inside a bathroom at a residence. The resident told police that she had encountered Abbey, who was known to her, inside the main living space at her residence. He told her he was going to do laundry; the laundry room is across from the bathroom where the alleged incident took place, the criminal complaint stated.

The resident said Abbey was acting strangely, so they decided to stay in the residence while he remained there. The resident went in to start some laundry and looked across the hall, seeing a phone against the wall near a baseboard heating unit in the bathroom, positioned vertically, the complaint stated.

The resident picked up the phone, saw it was on “video” mode, determined the phone belonged to Abbey and confronted him, telling him to gather his belongings and leave. The resident said Abbey knew that a minor female was the only one who used that restroom.

When police interviewed Abbey, he said he was “trying to record a ‘creepshot’” of someone else in the home. However, despite denying the juvenile was his intended target, he admitted knowing the juvenile was the one who used that restroom. When asked if he was interested in the minor, Abbey told police “he has thought about seeing her nude in his ‘deepest and darkest thoughts,” the criminal complaint stated.

Abbey admitted to police that he had a “fetish for ‘creepshot’ pornography and to attempting to record such videos” at the victim’s residence, the complaint stated. He told police he was still in possession of the recording from the residence and asked if the trooper wanted to see it. He did show a video to the trooper, which showed the resident discovering the phone, according to the complaint.

His phone was seized and forensically analyzed, with police finding “child sexual abuse material” including a video of child pornography that had been created or modified on his phone on May 20, 2022, prior to this incident, the complaint stated.

Abbey was arrested and charged with sexual abuse of children, a second-degree felony; child pornography, a third-degree felony; and two counts of invasion of privacy, second-degree misdemeanors.

He was arraigned before District Judge Robert Repard, Tioga County, on Jan. 26, and remanded to jail in lieu of $50,000 bail. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Monday before District Judge Christopher Kalacinski in Galeton.