A nanny in New York City quit and filed a police report after she said she found a camera installed in her employer’s bathroom — where she said she’s showered countless times.
A New York City nanny is fighting back after she says she found a hidden camera in the bathroom at the home of the family for whom she worked.
Vanessa Rivas, 23, spoke exclusively to Inside Edition about the moment she went to shower and spotted the device, which she said was disguised as a phone charger. "I couldn't believe it," she recalled. "I was like, 'There is no way this is a camera, there is no way!'"
Rivas said she looked through the footage recorded in an attempt to determine who put the camera there.
"The first video is Lauren in the bathroom," she said, referring to her former employer, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Lauren Angelo Seltzer. "I do believe that it was Lauren who put the camera there."
Rivas added that she was stunned by the discovery, and said that she quit immediately and filed a police report.
"I was very upset," she said. "You give your all to a family and they could betray you this way."
Rivas says Seltzer denied installing a camera in a voicemail. She played the alleged voicemail for Inside Edition. "I have absolutely no idea what that is," the woman says in the recording. "We love you. I wouldn't do that and why would I ever put it in a bathroom?"
After she filed the report with police, however, Rivas said she received another call — this time from Seltzer's mother, Eileen Koretz, who's a Manhattan judge. Rivas played the second recording for Inside Edition as well. "Hi Vanessa, it's Eileen. If you could call me at this number when you have a minute," Koretz allegedly says in the voicemail. "I would appreciate it. Thank you."
According to Rivas' lawyer, the family tried to intimidate her into backing down, but she refused.
Though the Seltzer family has not been charged with a crime, the case remains under investigation. Rivas is now suing for violation of privacy, unlawful surveillance and harassment, and she said she fears there are more videos out there.
"I've showered there countless times," Rivas said. "... I was there for a whole year."
Asked what she would say to her former employer if she could confront her, Rivas replied, "Why just why — why were you recording me?"
In a statement to Inside Edition, Marvin Ray Raskin, an attorney for Seltzer, called the claims in the lawsuit "baseless and without merit."
“As such, Ms. Rivas has decided to embark on an unsubstantiated public smear campaign while simultaneously pressuring my client for a financial settlement," the statement read. "A private family's life has been turned upside down by an individual they had previously trusted. Once the facts come to light, it will be apparent to all that Ms. Rivas' story is untrue.”
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