A man who filmed a 15-year-old girl showering and other women changing clothes at his Jersey Shore rental properties has pleaded guilty to manufacturing child sexual abuse material and invasion of privacy, Ocean County prosecutors announced Tuesday.
When sentenced Nov. 14, 44-year-old David Lyons of Glenside, Pennsylvania, faces a potential six years in New Jersey State Prison, Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley Billhimer said of his Friday plea before Judge Kimarie Rahill. Prosecutors are seeking a six-year sentence on the sexual abuse material charge and three for invasion of privacy, to be served concurrently.
Those charges relate to a July 2023 incident in the Jersey Shore town of Beach Haven on Long Beach Island. Several more charges for related incidents at other properties Lyons owns are pending in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania, prosecutors said.
Lyons first drew scrutiny in July 2024, when a 15-year-old family member reported being filmed while using an outdoor shower at his rental property in Beach Haven. The Beach Haven Police Department searched the rental home, where Lyons was also living, and seized about a dozen electronic devices, including cameras.
He was arrested and “charged accordingly,” then booked into the Ocean County Jail and “subsequently released as a consequence of New Jersey Bail Reform,” the prosecutor’s office said, without saying what ultimately came of those charges.
The electronics revealed that “Lyons had surreptitiously recorded a juvenile victim and an adult victim in various stages of undress in a bathroom at another rental property in Beach Haven in July 2023,” prosecutors said, which led to the charges he admitted to on Friday.
Images and downloads went as far back as 2020, WCAU-TV reported, and his search history revealed attempts to find smoke detector cameras. “It certainly indicates that he had a devious mind,” detective Sgt. Troy Hummel told WCAU at the time.
Some of the material came from Lyons’ Pennsylvania residence, and Beach Haven authorities alerted the Abington Township Police Department. Detectives confirmed that Lyons had recorded teen girls and adult women undressing there as well.
Abington police arrested Lyons in March 2025 for felony sexual abuse of children, invasion of privacy, and producing obscene and other sexual materials, among other charges. After turning himself in on March 26, he was arraigned before Magisterial District Judge Duffy and released on $10,000 cash bail, with the charges still pending.
“Anytime there’s a child victim, it brings it up to a much higher level of seriousness,” Abington Township detective Sgt. Ryan Dunzee told WTXF-TV at the time.
Police and prosecutors in all the jurisdictions have appealed to the public for information, and are encouraging other potential victims to come forward.
