Bucks County family counselor charged with putting spy cam in women’s bathroom in Quakertown
Jonathan Elliot Moyer worked as the program director at Empower Life Coaching & Counseling, which has offices in Bally and Quakertown.
A family counselor who works in Bucks and Berks Counties was arrested Thursday after authorities found evidence that he installed a spy camera to secretly record patients and staff on the toilet at his Quakertown office.
Jonathan Elliot Moyer, 54, was charged with nine criminal counts related to the surreptitious recording, according to the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office.
Moyer worked as the program director at Empower Life Coaching & Counseling, which offers counseling services to individuals, families, and children between its two offices in Bally and Quakertown.
On Monday, a detective with the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office received a tip about an electronic storage device containing video of a man as he set up a concealed recording device inside the firm’s Quakertown office, located on West Broad Street. Witness testimony later determined that man to be Moyer, according to the district attorney’s office.
The next day, police executed a search warrant at Moyer’s home in Alburtis, Berks County, as well as his two offices in Bally and Quakertown.
When detectives arrived at the Quakertown office, authorities said, Moyer asked to use the bathroom. Police denied the request, and then searched the bathroom, where they located “a suspicious-looking black USB charging block” plugged into an outlet across from the toilet, authorities said.
“Upon closer examination, the charging block was discovered to be a covert recording device,” District Attorney Jennifer Schorn’s office said in a statement.
On the storage device, authorities said, were videos of several women using the toilet — one of whom had “delicate facial features” and may have been “younger in age.” Schorn’s office said it appeared the women did not know they were being recorded.
In the basement of Moyer’s home, police seized other charging-block camera devices like the one discovered in the office bathroom, as well as covert key fob cameras, pens, and micro-storage cards, according to the district attorney’s statement.
So far, the district attorney’s office has identified four people recorded by the hidden cameras, though more victims may surface throughout the ongoing investigation, prosecutors said.
Moyer was charged with interception of oral communications, possession of a device for interception of oral communications, possession of an instrument of crime, and six counts of invasion of privacy.
Court records show Moyer was taken to the Bucks County Correctional Facility on $150,000 bail. He was out on bail as of Saturday, his defense attorney, Carson Morris, said.
Morris said his client is cooperating with authorities and is no longer employed at Empower Life Coaching & Counseling.
“He stepped away voluntarily from these businesses the moment that the warrant was executed,” the attorney said.
Moyer’s name and biography have been scrubbed from Empower’s website, but an archived version of the staff page shows that Moyer offered counseling for drugs and alcohol, anxiety, parent-child interactions, and group family sessions.
“I am here to help clients to identify and process deep-seated, repressed emotions,” the counselor wrote on his since-deleted bio. “This can help them gain insight and improve their relationships with others.”
A request for comment from the counseling center went unreturned Saturday. A message on its website said the Quakertown facility is “closed until further notice” and invited patients to reschedule appointments at the Bally office.
Court records show Moyer’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 20.