Elise Schmelzer
The Denver Post
DENVER — A lieutenant with the Denver Fire Department could face a felony charge for allegedly placing a motion-activated camera in a female firefighter’s room, recording her changing clothes and later tampering with the camera’s memory card.
Daniel Flesner, a 27-year veteran of the department, was arrested Wednesday on a warrant for tampering with physical evidence, a felony, and invasion of privacy for sexual gratification, a misdemeanor. Flesner retired Monday — two days after the female firefighter discovered the camera in her room.
The female firefighter, whose name is redacted in Flesner’s arrest affidavit, found the camera in her room Saturday night while working a shift at a fire house on Brighton Boulevard, according to the affidavit. She found the camera after hearing a device in Flesner’s pocket repeat something she had just said to him while she was sitting in her room and he was standing in the doorway. She became suspicious she was being recorded.
She searched her room and found what appeared to be a phone charger with a camera lens facing the area where she changes her clothes, the affidavit states. She reported the device to Flesner, not knowing at the time he was the person who placed it there.
She then reported the situation to another fire department employee, who brought the camera to Flesner. When the female firefighter requested to see what the camera had recorded, Flesner used a pen to try to remove the memory card but said that the card was jammed into the device and wouldn’t come out, according to the affidavit.
The fire department contacted police about the camera, but Flesner did not tell investigators at first that he had placed the camera in the room. Police later learned that Flesner had admitted to someone else in the fire department that he had placed the camera in the room as a joke.
Police found a single video on the SD card that showed the female firefighter changing clothes as well as several deleted videos and pictures.
Flesner was suspended from work on March 31.
Fire officials said Thursday that there may be additional victims.
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