A respected NYU art history teacher was arrested on Monday and accused of being a peeping professor. Ross Finocchio, 34, was allegedly caught using his iPhone to spy on young women in the changing rooms at Beacon's Closet on Monday. “He said, ‘I’m so embarrassed. I was recording myself for a project — if I could just explain myself,’” store manager Stephanie Williams told the Post. Ahh, the old art project excuse—classic upskirter stuff.
Finocchio allegedly set up his phone in a shoebox, and then slid it under the changing room partition to the next room. One 26-year-old victim says she saw the shoe slide into her room as she was getting undressed at 4:30 p.m. “I told the store manager that I saw him put something under the door but I didn’t see what it was,” she told the Post. That woman and Williams then watched as Finocchio allegedly pulled the same stunt on a 28-year-old woman.
“I knocked on [his dressing-room door] and said, ‘You have to come out right now,’” said manager Stephanie Williams. When he came out, she said he "was sweating profusely," and she snapped the photo above. Finocchio, a PhD student who also works at the Met, was charged with unlawful surveillance, a felony, and admitted to making the recordings, according to the criminal complaint. An NYU spokesman added that he won't have any contact with students "until the matter is cleared up."
