Lawsuit: Women sue Frankfort pizzeria owner over 'up-skirt' videos

Former employees of a Frankfort pizzeria owner have filed a lawsuit that claimed he made clandestine “up-skirt” videos of them.

Michael Papandrea, 58, of Frankfort, is also facing criminal charges that allege he secretly made unauthorized video recordings of his unwitting female workers.

Four women claimed in a lawsuit filed Friday that they learned in March a computer located at Parmesans Wood Stone Pizza at 10235 W. Lincoln Highway contained “hundreds of video recordings of employees in the restaurant.”

“The nature of the videos are such that numerous videos were taken from underneath the various plaintiffs’ skirts or up under clothing,” the lawsuit said.

The women reported the discovery of the videos to police, the lawsuit said.

One of the women reviewed more than 100 videos that showed the four women were “secretly videotaped ‘up skirt’” by Papandrea, who would occasionally appear in the videos momentarily “while he was in the process of videotaping.”

“After discovering the intrusion, all plaintiffs were caused emotional suffering, anguish and embarrassment,” the lawsuit said. “Defendant Papandrea’s actions were outrageous and intentional and plaintiffs suffered great harm by his actions.”

Papandrea and his company, Parmesans Station Inc., are named as defendants in the lawsuit. The company operates Parmesans Wood Stone Pizza and Parmesans Station at 18001 S. 80th Ave. in Tinley Park, the lawsuit said.

On Aug. 6, Papandrea was indicted on 12 counts of felony unauthorized video recording of minors and five counts of misdemeanor unauthorized video recording, court records show. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The offenses took place between May 5, 2018, and March 22, 2019, the indictment said.

Illinois State Police investigators first started looking into Papandrea after receiving information concerning "unauthorized video recording" involving him at Parmesans Wood Stone Pizza, police said.

While searching the pizzeria, investigators "made contact with Papandrea" and seized electronics and video evidence supporting the arrest," police said.