Ex-North Kansas City Hospital worker pleads guilty after hiding camera in women’s bathroom
A former North Kansas City Hospital employee pleaded guilty this week after allegedly placing a camera in a women’s staff restroom in the hospital in 2023.
Gabriel Vanriette, 40, of Lawrence, pleaded guilty to felony invasion of privacy in Clay County court on February 27. He was charged in September 2023 after a hospital staff member discovered a tiny video camera that Vanriette had placed inside the women’s bathroom of a hospital staff locker room, according to court documents.
Vanriette worked as a respiratory therapist at North Kansas City hospital before his arrest. The camera had been disguised as a pen and left in a storage bin facing the toilet, so that the lens captured videos of female hospital staff members partially unclothed, according to court documents. A charge nurse at North Kansas City Hospital discovered the device on September 14 and reported it to North Kansas City police after finding a micro SD card inside of it, court documents read.
Officers inspected the miniature camera and found two videos taken on September 13 and 14, according to court documents. Security footage and key card entry logs showed Vanriette entering and exiting more than 15 times on the 14th, court documents read, even though he was not assigned to that locker room.
Investigators later recovered deleted videos from the pen camera in which Vanriette’s hospital access card was visible. In total, Vanriette had filmed eight female hospital employees with the pen camera, according to court documents.
Vanriette was fired from North Kansas City Hospital after his arrest. He was still employed as a respiratory therapist at University Health in Kansas City, formerly Truman Hospital, at the time that the charges were filed.
Vanriette was held in detention in Clay County on a $5,000 bond from September 23 until January 2024, according to court records. He will next appear in Clay County court on May 30 at 3 p.m. for a sentencing hearing.
Prosecutors plan to seek a three-year sentence for Vanriette, according to court documents.
