NORRISTOWN — A Norristown dance instructor “betrayed” seven unsuspecting female clients when he used a hidden camera in a bathroom changing room to secretly record them in various stages of undress, a prosecutor argued to a jury.
“The defendant used his skill set and his charm to gain their trust and then betrayed them. The betrayal came in the form of a hidden camera the defendant put in the bathroom of his dance studio,” Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Karla Pisarcik argued during her opening statement to a jury as the trial for Francis Gerard “Frankie G” Laurenzi got underway on Tuesday.
Pisarcik said the victims included a bride-to-be, a veteran Salsa dancer and others who simply wanted to learn to dance and turned to the FG Dance Studio and the “6-foot tall, handsome, charming dance instructor,” for lessons.
“What they didn’t sign up for was to have their privacy invaded when they used the bathroom of the dance studio,” Pisarcik argued.
Laurenzi, 38, of the 1700 block of Kendrick Lane, faces seven counts of invasion of privacy and one count of possessing an instrument of crime in connection with the alleged secret recordings he made between January and August 2022.
Defense lawyer Francis Genovese argued prosecutors will not be able to prove the allegations “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“The defendant is under no burden to prove anything in this trial. It’s entirely the commonwealth’s burden to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” Genovese argued during his opening statement to the jury of nine women and three men.
Genovese did not reveal if Laurenzi will testify during the trial. Judge Thomas M. DelRicci is presiding over the trial that is expected to last several days.
Under rules of criminal procedure, the jury will not be privy to the fact that in June 2015, Laurenzi, then 29 and a Conshohocken dance instructor, was sentenced to 9 to 23 months in jail and five years’ probation after he pleaded guilty to statutory sexual assault and a child pornography-related charge in connection with his inappropriate sexual relationship that began in 2012 with a 15-year-old Limerick girl who was his dance student at the time.
As a result of the previous conviction, Laurenzi also was required to report his address to state police for the rest of his life in order to comply with the state’s Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act.
On Tuesday, Laurenzi, who remains free on bail pending his latest trial, showed no visible emotion as the alleged victims began testifying for the jury.
A Narberth woman testified she went to the “FG Dance” located in the basement of Laurenzi’s residence on Aug. 16, 2022, for her first dance lesson. The woman, who had found the business while searching the internet for local dance lessons, testified that when the lesson concluded Laurenzi showed her articles of his clothing line that advertised the studio.
“He was insistent that I try it on. I wasn’t interested but I felt pressed. I caved a bit,” the woman told the jury.
As the woman began to disrobe in the studio’s bathroom she noticed an electrical outlet that housed a small black device that looked like a cellphone charger and that appeared to have a camera, according to her testimony.
Now suspicious, the woman said the device reminded her of a Tik Tok video she had seen two weeks earlier that warned women about secret recording devices that were identical to battery chargers. The woman testified she inspected the device more closely and found it contained an SD memory card and she removed it from the device before plugging the device back into the electrical outlet.
“I really tried to get out of there as fast as possible. I was trying to play it cool,” the woman told jurors, adding she quickly left the studio with the SD card. “I was terrified. I was panicking.”
Within minutes of driving away, Laurenzi phoned the woman twice, asking her if she took anything from the studio, at one point specifically mentioning an SD card, according to testimony.
“I started cussing him out for being a creep and a weirdo. I went off on him at that point,” the woman testified.
When the woman inspected the contents of the memory card she observed the recording of her getting undressed in the bathroom. The woman testified she had been recorded without her consent and she immediately notified Norristown police and subsequently gave authorities the memory card.
Norristown Detective Angela Anderson testified authorities obtained a warrant to search Laurenzi’s residence on Aug. 17. Testimony revealed detectives did not find anything resembling a hidden camera device in the bathroom.
Authorities did seize several electronic devices capable of storage but that nothing of evidentiary value was found on the devices, according to testimony.
But Norristown Police Lieutenant James Angelucci testified that when detectives recovered the contents of the SD memory card turned over by the victim they found 54 video files depicting females in the dance studio’s bathroom while in various stages of undress or nudity.
On Aug. 25, police held a press conference for the purpose of assisting detectives in identifying victims.
Ultimately, detectives were able to identify nine additional women depicted in the video files and 13 were unidentified, according to court documents. Each female depicted in the video files “confirmed that prior to arriving at Laurenzi’s dance studio they never agreed to be filmed in the nude,” Anderson wrote in a criminal complaint.
At the time of his previous sexual assault conviction in 2015, officials determined Laurenzi did not meet criteria under the law to be classified as a sexually violent predator.
The previous investigation of Laurenzi began on May 1, 2014, when Limerick police and Conshohocken police received information about an adult having a sexual relationship with a teenage girl.
Police received information that the man involved in the relationship was Laurenzi who was the owner of and an instructor at Urban Elegance Dance & Club in Conshohocken and was also a former dance instructor at LeRoux Dance Studio in Royersford.
Through the course of that investigation, police learned the victim first met Laurenzi when she was 10 at LeRoux Studios. When she was 14 she began taking private dance lessons with him, according to court documents.
The girl told detectives that when she was 15 in August 2012 she got a text message from Laurenzi stating he felt an attraction to her and asked if they were going to do something about it. According to the criminal complaint, approximately a week after the text message the two began a sexual relationship.
The sexual relationship between the victim and Laurenzi lasted from August 2012 to March 2014, according to authorities. The victim told detectives Laurenzi knew she was a minor and had concerns about getting caught.
