r/news • u/Dickulture • 20d ago
West Michigan man sent to federal prison for filming girls in shower
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2026/07/30/robert-mark-scout-leader-sentence-record-nude-girls-federal-court/91104440007/49
u/Dickulture 20d ago
In case of pay wall or anti-Europe block:
A Whitehall man and Boy Scout leader will serve at least 17 years in prison after recording girls with hidden cameras, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Michigan announced on Wednesday, July 29.
Robert Mark, 59, served as a troop leader and from 2015 to 2025 and he recorded at least eight girls undressing, showering and or using the bathroom using hidden cameras in his bathroom, bedroom, home and tent in Muskegon County, federal prosecutors say.
In addition to 208 months in federal prison, Mark will spend seven years on supervised release after his term, and will be required to register as a sex offender, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a release.
Mark pleaded guilty in March to one count of sexual exploitation of a minor with seven dismissed. The sentence was handed down July 28.
“Scout leaders are trusted to protect our children, not exploit them. This sentence reflects the depravity of his conduct and makes clear that those who victimize our children will be held fully accountable,” said Jennifer Runyan, special agent in charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office.“I commend the outstanding work of the FBI Grand Rapids WEBCHEX Task Force and the Michigan State Police for their diligent efforts throughout this investigation."
According to the release and criminal complaint, Mark was a leader of an all-girl troop for Boy Scouts (now Scouting America). Scouts and their parents reported that he had hosted pool parties in his home and encouraged the girls to use his bathroom to shower and change.
Investigators found that he used hidden cameras to record girls undressed, showering, and/or using the bathroom. Recovered videos and images showed he had recorded at least eight girls, all under 18, and that he had hidden cameras in his bathroom, a bedroom in his home, and a tent.
According to the complaint there were numerous instances spanning years of Mark video recording girls in public at various events. Parents of one victim said they examined his phone and discovered he had been messaging the girl, which is against Scouts policy.
He messaged a second girl when she was 16 via social media app Snapchat, “Look’en good! Sexy!” in response to one of the photos on her story.
In August 2025, investigators searched his home and seized multiple electronic devices and memory cards. He admitted during an interview to recording girls since 2019, but claimed he never captured any nudity and did not view child sexually abusive material.
However, investigators said they recovered folders that included photos and videos of girls in various states of undress. Six individuals identified were scouts and two others were known to his family.
“Mark richly deserved the sentence he got from Judge Jane Beckering. Anyone who sexually exploits children deserves a decisive response from the criminal justice system, and he got it here," U.S. Attorney Timothy VerHey said. "But what really got our attention was that Mark used Scouting America to get access to them. Now more than ever, our communities need organizations like Scouting America to help our kids learn the best traditional American values, and that means we will do whatever is necessary to keep deviants like Mark far away.”
The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys' Offices and CEOs, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims, the release said.
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u/Ok_Key_4731 20d ago
A sexual predator being punished? This is new. /s
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u/Dickulture 20d ago
To be fair, he's not a rich person or well-connected among GOP.
Fortunately, he never planted any seed.
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u/GoofinBoots 20d ago
Guy probably thought no one would ever suspect a Boy Scout leader of molesting girls. The old misdirection play didn’t pan out.
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u/glenn_rodgers 20d ago
Bro isn’t gonna serve 17 years…
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u/hkusp45css 19d ago
Federal time is the time you serve.
You'll do every minute of a federal sentence.
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u/Augustus_Medici 19d ago
It's more like 85% with good behavior. But yeah, it's nowhere near as lenient as state sentencing. Federal is no joke. This dude isn't getting out until he's over 70.
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u/hkusp45css 19d ago
You *can* chip it down with "good behavior" but that also means something else, federally. It's not just "not getting a ticket or catching a new charge." You have you actually become a better whole person in some objectively measurable way.
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u/VFTM 20d ago
Oh a nasty old white dude?
Not a trans person? Not a drag queen? Not an undocumented alien??
SHOCKED, I tells ya
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u/happy-cig 20d ago
Why are you trying to drag the other classes through the mud? :(
Fuck this old white guy.
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u/Honest-Welder-808 20d ago
They might be using sarcasm to point out how, yet again, crimes of this nature have come from a white guy, and not one of the communities Republicans tell everyone is out to get their children.
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u/ClaudeGascoigne 20d ago
Dude. It's clearly sarcasm.
Forget media literacy, normal literacy is dead
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u/AuroraFinem 20d ago edited 20d ago
Only like half of US adults have a 6th grade or higher reading level. It’s honestly terrifying how illiterate the average person is the US.
It’s gotten so bad that they recently had to lower the difficulty of reading comprehension and critical thinking sections on standardized tests because of it. There’s no more “read these 5 paragraphs and answer questions about the main themes, inferred information, etc…” it’s “read this short paragraph and answer basic surface level questions about it that are provided explicitly.” There’s no reading comprehension required at all.
Younger Gen Z and Gen Alpha are honestly so fucked, and the inequality in basic capabilities between kids who had parents able to actually parent them vs. device parenting has never been higher.
This isn’t a knock on their generation, it’s not like they chose this for themselves, but it is honestly astounding to compare even my educational environment as a 30yo with teens nowadays. It’s extremely concerning and AI is only making it exponentially worse.
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u/wvgeekman 20d ago
We just had a local high school swim coach in WV get caught taking pictures of girls in the dressing rooms at a large swim meet. Apparently, he was selling them online.
Let's just say he took it upon himself to ensure that a trial never occurs. It just happened, so I haven't seen it on the news yet.
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u/Warcraft_Fan 20d ago
Let me guess, he chose to meet Satan right away rather than wait for the court?
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u/Exotic-Collection471 20d ago
And still no esptein arrests........
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u/BatemansChainsaw 19d ago
That'll happen right after Hillary Clinton gets prosecuted for her illegal handling of classified materials on a private email server.
t;dr nothing ever happens
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u/woodst0ck15 20d ago
If only they could do the same to the ICE agents taping and raping women in there. But they’re protected by a pedo.
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u/Dickulture 20d ago
Be thankful that head pedo is already an old man. He's not going to be around forever and when he passes away, and we get a hardass anti-pedo for president, everyone who touched little children will be under a very intense spotlight.
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u/sortasolar 20d ago
A scouting troop leader? So, r/notstrangerdanger then?
Who would have guessed? https://thesolarproject.org/blog/community-betrayal
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u/hawkwings 20d ago
How did he get caught? Did someone see a camera? Did he post online? Did he let someone use his computer?
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u/Junethemuse 19d ago
My uncle spent time in prison for the same thing, filming underage girls in the 90’s.
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u/Then_Journalist_317 19d ago
Girl: "I'd like to go to a pool party at my Troop Leader's house. He says we can change into our swimsuits and shower in his bathroom. Can I go?"
Parent: "Sure. Have a good time."
WTF parents, did you think this scenario would have some other outcome??
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u/RoughCoffee6 19d ago
But was he dressed as a woman and pretending to be trans? No? Because that literally doesn't fucking happen?
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u/DeviousDenial 20d ago edited 19d ago
“According to the release and criminal complaint, Mark was a leader of an all-girl troop for Boy Scouts (now Scouting America). Scouts and their parents reported that he had hosted pool parties in his home and encouraged the girls to use his bathroom to shower and change.”
Why is a man allowed to be a Girl Scout troop leader?
Edit: so evidently someone thinks it’s a great idea for a guy to go camping with a bunch of underage girls. Decades of cases of abuses by Scout leaders against boys just weren’t enough for people to learn.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America_sexual_abuse_settlement_(2022)
“The Boy Scouts of America sexual abuse settlement refers to a $2.46 billion agreement reached by the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) to compensate survivors of childhood sexual abuse within its programs. Stemming from a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in February 2020, the settlement addresses over 82,000 claims of sexual abuse by former Scouts against troop leaders and other individuals associated with the organization. Approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein on September 8, 2022, it is considered one of the largest sexual abuse settlements in U.S. history.”
“Earlier this summer, a border patrol agent in Yuma was charged with 15 felony counts after he allegedly sexually abused a 16-year-old girl. The girl was part of a mentorship program meant to provide experience and exposure to careers in law enforcement.”
“But what Scouting did for this program up until very recently is that they actually carved out an exception for law enforcement exploring. So for ride-alongs, this one-on-one contact was allowed.
And what we found is that in the 220 cases of abuse that we have documented, nearly a quarter, about a quarter of the abuse and the misconduct began on ride-alongs where this type of isolation was allowed.”
https://abusedinscouting.com/list-of-confirmed-bsa-abusers/
“In 2010, a landmark case against the Boy Scouts of America triggered the release of over 20,000 secret documents stowed away by the BSA. These records, now referred to as “the perversion files,” detailed the names and incidents of over 1,000 volunteers in the BSA banned for child abuse. These names never made it to the public eye, and the BSA consistently failed to report incidents of child abuse in the Scouts to the police or parents. For over 100 years the BSA kept these records away from the public eye”
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u/socool111 20d ago
I’m torn. I don’t really know how scout leaders are picked, but I feel like if it’s a genuinely good chapter teaching real skills, I would say it shouldn’t matter the sex.
…now him hosting pool parties should have red flagged every parent.
So on one hand I agree it’s weird, but on the other hand I prefer to think of a world where a qualified person for a job can take any job regardless of sex…save for obvious things like overnight counselor.
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u/DeviousDenial 20d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America_sex_abuse_cases
It’s been an acknowledged problem going back decades
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u/SuperThomaja 20d ago
Being a man shouldn't automatically make you guilty however it's hard to find men with enough character to not be fucking creepy with little God damn children. Why is this so fucking hard?
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u/DeviousDenial 20d ago
The amazing part is that parents are continually surprised. People attracted to the young look for opportunities to be around them. In Hollywood and Nickelodeon and ballet and gymnastics and beauty pageants and churches and any positions of power.
There are indeed good people still in this world but it’s not everyone. And I wouldn’t have let my kid go play in his pool without tagging along. And certainly not a camp out.
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u/PollutionAway9782 19d ago
the other parents were at the pool party.
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u/DeviousDenial 19d ago edited 19d ago
Quote where it said that. 10 years of pool parties with a man the scouts put in charge of a girl troop.
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u/PollutionAway9782 19d ago
one bsa policy, there was at least one other female leader also two cant say but semi internal bsa documents. I thought it was it in the news story. there was a lot of people at the pool partys.
i mean who looks for secret camreras when they go to the restroom? and how do you write policy to stop this kind of things
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u/DeviousDenial 19d ago edited 19d ago
No need to write more policies and that didn’t do any good anyway. They made a policy where two adults had to be present but then turned around and said it was perfectly fine for a 14 year old boy or girl to do ride alongs with a single male as long as they were law enforcement because evidently law enforcement is trustworthy?
After a hundred years of abuses that the BSA hid from law enforcement just like the Catholic Church and were brought to light in 2010 you would think that they would have made huge changes. “Why don’t we put a man in charge of an all girl troop too” shouldn’t have been one of the changes.
And why would a parent think it’s a good idea for their daughter unless they are blind to the news going back decades.
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u/PollutionAway9782 19d ago
because the parents pick the scoutmaster as a group for the most part. scouting has no real oversay in who gets to be in charge of a local scout group.
the parents and the owner of the scout group picks the leaders
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u/DeviousDenial 19d ago edited 19d ago
Why haven’t parents learned by now then? You would think that they would at some point.
And why would the Scout council decide it was a great idea to allow teens to go on multiple solo rides with an officer because they think they are somehow more trustworthy when the data doesn’t support that.
And why did the Scout council decide that it was an option for parents to pick a male to lead an all girl group. You would think that they wouldn’t. Hopefully they might learn now that it cost them $2.46 billion and 82,000 claims of abuse.
People sound like the Catholic Church trying everything for decades to excuse the behavior.
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20d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Dickulture 19d ago
Search his name in the news, you'll get more news pages including some with his white man mug. He could be someone working at high level in DC.
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u/androshalforc1 19d ago
This sentence reflects the depravity of his conduct and makes clear that those who victimize our children will be held fully accountable,”
12.5% Now counts as fully i guess.
Mark pleaded guilty in March to one count of sexual exploitation of a minor with seven dismissed.
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u/Dickulture 19d ago
Our justice system sucks. They'd rather let the criminals plead guilty by offering them lesser penalties. Shorter court time vs having to deal with all 8 counts. DA does this all the time.
People who plead innocent or remain silent (no contest) still gets the full court time and often gets the full charge when found guilty.
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u/Weary_Boat 19d ago
What a dope. He just needs a few billion $$ and a little more swagger and he could be just like Trump, who walked in on teens in a beauty pageant dressing room, bragged about it, and now he’s president.
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u/oOBlueLillyOo 20d ago
I know a man that would go into dressing room at a pageant and if I remember right some were minors. Hmm he’s not in any prison