An Aiken rental property owner is slated to go on trial Monday in state court for allegedly invading a married couple’s privacy by secretly videoing them in intimate acts in an Aiken rental unit.
The man, Rhett Riviere, was arrested by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division in 2021 and 2022 and charged with three counts of voyeurism after agents were given computer video files allegedly taken of people in Riviere’s rental units, one of which was an Airbnb unit. Those charges are still pending.
The secret videoing at issue in Monday’s civil trial allegedly happened in 2001, years before Riviere began renting on Airbnb. Airbnb stopped doing business with Riviere in 2019, the company has said.
Only in recent years did the thousands of videos Riviere recorded over the years surface and come to the attention of SLED and others, according to complaints filed by the married couple, Heather and Gabriel Crespo, in Aiken County state court.
Riviere and other defendants in the case — his ex-wife Josee Riviere and two corporations that own the rental units — have denied the allegations.
Riviere, 70, comes from a prominent Aiken horse family.
His late mother, Marilynn Riviere, was a prominent property developer in Maryland and Aiken and developed property in downtown Aiken.
She was “a life-long equestrienne and on the board of trustees of Aiken Training Track, which has produced several champion racehorses,” according to an obituary. Her father was a member of Congress from Ohio, and one of her grandfathers was “an oil tycoon,” another obituary said.
In its investigation, SLED discovered “approximately 21,000 video recordings (some containing audio) containing images of other people . . .spanning a twenty-year period,” a complaint in the case said.
“Many of these images appear to be young teenage girls (some appear to be minors) in a state of undress. There are also many images of people engaged in sexual activity and in intimate moments while in Riviere’s properties.”
His rental properties included several small cottages.
In her complaint, plaintiff Heather Crespo said she and her husband stayed in a rental unit owned by a Riviere company between April and June 2001. During that time, there were videos secretly made “with extremely private images of them undressing and without clothing and engaged in intimate and private activities,” her lawsuit alleged. Her husband filed a similar lawsuit. The two complaints have been joined for the purposes of Monday’s trial.
“Unbeknownst to Plaintiff and without her consent, the rental property contained a surreptitiously placed video camera positioned to capture recordings in the bedroom and the bathroom of the rental,” the complaint alleged. “Defendant Riviere had set up video surveillance equipment and secretly video recorded Plaintiff and her husband while they were in the bedroom and the bathroom.”
Riviere titled one video of the Crespos “Heather and Gabriel,” according to the lawsuits.
SLED agents may testify for the Crespos in the case. The defendants deny the allegations.
SLED began an investigation into “Riviere’s criminal conduct in late 2019 and discovered numerous video recordings (some containing audio) of people undressing or during intimate moments,” the complaint said.
The videos came into SLED’s possession after an ex-girlfrind of Riviere’s, Katherine Thomas, found numerous SD cards containing images of people in various stages of undress and turned some over the SLED, the Crespos’ lawsuits said.
SLED began investigating and “discovered numerous recordings of other people spanning decades,” the lawsuits said.
Josee Riviere “was aware that Riviere had voyeuristic proclivities and cameras with recording devices in the rentals and did not take any action. To the contrary, she assisted him in renting properties to the general public,” the lawsuits said.
The wrongs alleged against Riviere in the civil complaint include negligence, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Wrongs alleged against Josee Riviere include negligence, constructive fraud and violation of the Unfair Trade Practices Act.
In a pretrial deposition in the case, Riviere was asked if he put any of his videos on the internet or the Dark Web.
“I invoke the Fifth (Amendment to keep silent),” Riviere replied.
Lawyers for the Crespos are Debbie Barbier, Ryan Beasley and Wes Few.
Lawyers representing the defendants are Jim Griffin, Joe McCulloch, Margaret Fox and John Harte.
Presiding in the case is state Judge Martha Rivers.
Airbnb has previously said it removed Riviere from being allowed to handle its business in 2019, when complaints first began to surface about him.
SLED declined comment on any ongoing investigation or its agents’ possible testimony at the trial.
The agency did release a statement saying, “Anyone with information on this matter or who may be a victim involved should contact SLED at (866)472-8477 and/or email tips@sled.sc.gov .”
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