QuickTake:

Elijah David Russo has also been ordered to avoid any contact with the Oregon Country Fair during the term of his probation.

A 31-year-old Elmira man was sentenced to three years of probation after pleading guilty on Wednesday, Nov. 12, to recording people without their knowledge or consent July 5 in a nude shower area at the Oregon Country Fair.

Elijah David Russo pleaded guilty to first-degree invasion of personal privacy, a felony.

His sentencing factored in that he had never been previously convicted of a felony or a Class A misdemeanor, the most serious category of misdemeanor offenses, according to court documents.

Reached by phone Monday, Russo said he had “no comment for right now.”

A search warrant filed in the case described a man at the fair telling a sheriff’s deputy that he saw Russo using a cellphone placed in a toiletries caddy to record people at a shower area known as the Ritz.

The Lane County Sheriff’s Office arrested Russo during the fair’s setup weekend. He was released from custody on July 9 and placed on electronic monitoring pending the case’s outcome.

The annual event draws about 45,000 people over three days, according to the fair’s website. Russo’s arrest took place before the arrival of the large public crowds, instead taking place during a time when vendors, staff and volunteers — many of whom camp on-site — prepared the grounds near Veneta, about 15 miles west of Eugene, for the event.

The Oregon County Fair did not immediately respond to questions Monday morning about the case. Vanessa Roy, the fair’s marketing coordinator, previously declined to comment about Russo.

After the fair opened, a vendor on the grounds who spoke with Lookout Eugene-Springfield described the recording as a violation of trust running counter to the fair’s environment, but said she’d continue to use the communal shower.

Nudity at the fair is common enough that the topic makes an appearance on the “Frequently Asked Questions” section of the fair’s website. (For the record, people are required to cover their genitals in public “in accordance with Oregon law.”)

Probation matches sentencing guideline

Russo pleaded guilty to a Class C felony, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $125,000 fine.

Lane County District Attorney Christopher Parosa said in a phone interview that the three years of probation matched the state’s sentencing guidelines for the crime, given Russo’s lack of a criminal history.

Lane County Circuit Judge Clara Rigmaiden signed the judgment also ordering Russo to spend 15 days in jail, with credit for time served. He is to have “[n]o contact with the Oregon Country Fair during the term of this probation.”

Parosa said Russo is undergoing mental health treatment. Sentencing guidelines call for 30 days in jail, but prosecutors agreed to 15 days to allow Russo to continue taking part in the treatment, Parosa said. Court records state Russo took part in a psychological evaluation.

In agreeing to reduce the jail time, the prosecution also considered “potential evidentiary issues,” as “we didn’t have any identified victims in this case,” Parosa said.

Parosa said he lacked details about efforts made to identify the people in the recording, but noted that the event draws many from outside the area.

“It was not necessarily easy for law enforcement to actually track these people down,” Parosa said.

In a trial, “one of the things we’d have to prove was that the victims felt the invasion of privacy, and we couldn’t actually identify who the victims depicted in the video were,” Parosa said.

Parosa said the state limits which crimes can result in sex-offender registration requirements, which are not an option in sentencing for convictions solely on invasion of personal privacy charges.