SAN ANTONIO — A woman's trip to a San Antonio Walmart turned into a police investigation when she said she caught a man recording a video looking up her skirt.
She was shopping for a baby shower gift in the basket aisle on May 3, at the location off De Zavala and Interstate 10. When she saw what 21-year-old Sonny Miguel Villegas was doing, she says she started hitting him and tried to grab his cell phone.
The man's shirt came off in the scuffle and he bolted out the store, shirtless and phone in hand. The victim called police, who immediately checked the store's surveillance footage.
That footage corroborated her story. Records say police were able to watch the man getting into a red Chevrolet sedan, his license plate clearly visible.
The victim said it was "very obvious" what the man was doing.
"I turned around and he's coming from a squatting position," she said. "I looked down and his phone, the light was on. You could see the screen recording. It was a shock."
Five days after the incident, SAPD officers spotted Villegas' car out on the road. They pulled it over and found the driver matched the suspect seen on surveillance cameras.
As officers executed a search warrant in late June, they say Villegas admitted to recording the invasive video at the Walmart, adding he recorded more videos just like it. When detectives searched his phone, records say, they found multiple videos, two of which began with the suspect taking a selfie video before lowering the camera.
"It's one of those things that you think, 'This is something that somebody might think is minor,' and it escalates and it escalates," the victim told KENS 5. "If this person is not caught, what's gonna be next? Is it gonna be a physical thing he does to a girl?"
Villegas was arrested Tuesday and faces a felony charge of invasive visual recording. He could be sentenced up to two years if convicted.