Victim traumatized after man arrested on second voyeurism charge, released on bail again

CINCINNATI (WKRC) – The local man who was arrested for the second time for allegedly taking photos over department store dressing room doors is back on the streets.

Alex Heher was released on bail on Wednesday after police arrested him for voyeurism while wearing an electronic monitoring device.

Local 12 investigated how this could have happened and what impact it might have on his alleged victims.

Heher was in court Wednesday morning and would be released in the afternoon. It is the second time this year that the Hamilton County Probation Department has placed an ankle bracelet on him. The first was when police arrested him in April at the Target store in Colerain Township.

According to police reports, he hung his phone over the door of a private dressing room and took photos of a woman. He paid bail and was given an ankle bracelet. Four months later, officers arrested him at a Kohl’s in Fairfield for allegedly doing the same thing. He violated his bail, so he was arrested again and taken back to jail. But on Saturday, Judge Heather Russell again allowed him to be released on bail.

That’s why Heher was back in the electronic monitoring facility on Wednesday, where another ankle bracelet was put on him. He will be out and, in theory, monitored until his next court date.

Local 12 spoke behind closed doors with its alleged victim from the Target incident, who said she was traumatized. Dr. Michelle Maegly is a psychologist and trauma specialist at Hello Mental Health.

“It really is a violation of a person’s sense of space, integrity and safety, especially when these things happen in public,” Maegly said.

She said the reaction of a person who is the victim of a non-contact sex crime can be intense and long-lasting.

“It can cause a person to become more irritable and less trusting of others,” Maegly said. “They may not want to be as social as they used to.”

You may be wondering how Heher could have been arrested when she allegedly committed the same crime while wearing that monitoring device. The probation department told Local 12 that there are two types of monitoring: geographic monitoring, where the department is alerted when someone goes somewhere they shouldn’t go, and time-based monitoring, where someone isn’t in a place they should be, such as home or work, when they should be there.

So if Heher had been allowed to leave his home while at the Kohl’s store, no parole alert would have been triggered.

He is due back in court in Hamilton County later in September.

The Hamilton County Probation Department told Local 12 that it currently monitors 700 defendants and does not have the staff to physically monitor everyone’s whereabouts at all times. If a transmitter does not set off an alarm, it will go undetected until it is checked.