Suit Accuses Club of Allowing Peeping Toms

A 19-year-old woman has sued the owner and several employees of a Ventura health club, contending that she was sexually assaulted because the club allowed peeping Toms to spy on female patrons.

The suit alleges that the Ventura Athletic Club on Everglades Street, formerly known as Nautilus of California, gave some employees and patrons access to areas where they could look through holes in ceiling tiles.

The practice “allowed spying upon nude or partially undressed women and women in the process of showering,” the suit says.

In May, 1989, the suit says, a club employee attacked the woman and made lewd remarks. The suit says the club should have known that “providing employees and third persons with views of naked females would result in . . . sexual advance and attack.”

The suit, filed two weeks ago in Ventura County Superior Court, claims negligence, battery, invasion of privacy, conspiracy, and negligent infliction of emotional distress, among other things. It seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

Club owner John Bookwalter said: “I had no knowledge whatsoever of any of the activities that she alleges took place.” He said the woman did not report any incidents to club management or to the police, as far as he knows.

“Our first knowledge of this was in 1991 when we received information from Mr. Pell’s office,” Bookwalter said. Attorney Steven D. Pell, who filed the suit on behalf of the woman, declined to comment.

Ventura police said they could not immediately determine whether the woman had filed a complaint after the alleged assault.

Bookwalter said the safety of the club’s 1,500 members “is our utmost concern.” He declined to comment further.

The suit says Bookwalter knew of the spying because he had replaced some ceiling tiles that were “torn by people looking through the ceiling to private areas, including lockers and tanning booths.”

Bookwalter not only failed to curb the illicit viewing, but personally showed people how to reach vantage points for spying, the suit says.

“Owners, employees and third persons were permitted . . . to observe plaintiff undressed, showering, changing clothing, tanning, using the restrooms and in other activities in which plaintiff had a reasonable expectation of privacy,” the suit says.

It could not be determined whether the employee who allegedly attacked the woman still works at the club. The suit says the man threw her onto a couch and said he wanted to engage in a sex act with her. She was 17 at the time, according to the suit.

The suit says the woman has suffered psychological damage, shock, nausea and paranoia.

A hearing has not been scheduled in the case, which was assigned to Judge Richard D. Aldrich.