WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A West Palm Beach landlord is accused hiding cameras in his rental space, threatening to release intimate footage from those cameras and stalking his tenants even after they moved out.
Steven Fair faces charges of video voyeurism and stalking after multiple former tenants came forward.
A 21-year-old woman told police the 61-year-old landlord constantly made sexual comments towards her. She said he asked her to go to nude beaches with him and asked if she could "borrow her for 1k."
The woman lived in the apartment on Monroe Drive from Aug. 3, 2020, until Sept, 10, 2020, but after denying Fair's aggressive advances, he asked her to move out because a family member was going to move in.
After she moved out, the woman said, she began receiving phone calls, voice mails and text messages from a man. In the messages, police said, the man said he had nude videos of her and posted them online.
The woman said she recognized the voice as her former landlord's.
On March 12, the woman called the number and asked the man who picked up if he was Fair. The man said he was Fair and told her what happened to her "was karma because she left the apartment a mess."
He denied repeatedly calling her, but still reiterated many of the insults he made on those calls during that call. When she asked if he recorded her, he said he wouldn't admit to anything but "got the last laugh." She asked how he would know things otherwise and he responded, "That should raise a red flag for you, huh?"
A different woman had filed a video voyeurism report against Fair on Feb. 12, 2013. She told police she rented the apartment from Fair from January through May 2008.
Just like the other tenant, she got several phone calls from a man, who said he had videos of her in the shower. Police said he would also regularly text her describing things about her body that he wouldn't know unless he actually saw her in the nude.
The woman believed he had a video recording device somewhere in the bathroom.
Police searched Fair's apartment Wednesday and found small drill holes in the south wall of the bedroom, and behind that wall was Fair's upstairs attic. They also found what appeared to be a face mark on the wall to look into the apartment.
Police said Fair admitted to calling and harassing prior tenants.
There was a different woman living in the apartment at the time of the search.
A fourth woman, who was living downstairs in the rear cottage, said she's been Fair's tenant since 2016 and lived in the upstairs apartment from 2016 until July 2020. She then moved to the detached cottage for more living space.
Police said they also searched the cottage and found holes in her east bedroom wall, which is attached to Fair's detached garage.
"He basically kept to himself," neighbor Mike Raffa told WPTV's Linnie Supall.
Raffa said his encounters with Fair were brief.
"Just hi and hello, and that was it," Raffa recalled. "It really wasn't a friendship. It was just an interaction."
Sgt. David Lefont said investigators believe there could be more victims.
"We know for certain that additional people rented from him," Lefont said. "Whether they're victims or not, we have to establish that."