A former two-time Jeopardy! winner from North Carolina has been arrested on two charges of felony secret peeping.
Philip Joseph “Joey” DeSena, 42, is accused of installing cameras in a victim’s bedroom and bathroom, according to an arrest warrant filed by the Currituck County Sheriff’s Office and viewed by People.
The warrant said the alleged crime happened on Oct. 10, but the warrant was not issued until Nov. 26.
According to the warrant, authorities stated DeSena “unlawfully, willfully and feloniously,” secretly or surreptitiously, installed a “device that can be used to create [a] photographic image, namely a camera,” placed in the two rooms “with the intent to capture the image of another without their consent.”
DeSena was taken into custody on Dec. 1. He was released from jail on Dec. 3 on a $5,000 bond, according to CBS affiliate WBTV, located in Charlotte, N.C.
He was ordered to have no contact with the victim in his case. A probable cause hearing has been scheduled for Dec. 10.
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DeSena won Jeopardy! twice in November 2024, winning a total of $44,698.
DeSena is not the first Jeopardy! champion to face legal trouble.
Winston Nguyen, a former math teacher at an upscale private school in Brooklyn and Jeopardy! champion, was sentenced in March to seven years in prison on charges that he posed as a teenager on Snapchat to solicit nude images and sexual videos from children.
Nguyen had pleaded guilty earlier in March to one count of use of a child in a sexual performance as a sexually motivated felony and five counts of endangering the welfare of a child. He will be required to register as a sex offender after his release.
Nguyen appeared on two Jeopardy! episodes in 2014.
— With files from The Associated Press
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