Ex-Las Vegas PetSmart worker sues after supervisor’s phone recorded restroom, lawsuit says

A former PetSmart employee has sued the company after a former store supervisor pleaded no contest to allegations he filmed women without their consent in a North Las Vegas store restroom.

Filed in Clark County District Court on April 3, the lawsuit stems from a 2023 incident which led to the supervisor being fired and charged with a misdemeanor lewd conduct count after a police investigation in October 2023 determined he had been recording people in the store’s bathroom.

Ariana Jimenez, the plaintiff, has requested a jury trial and is seeking “compensatory damages for emotional distress” and lost wages, among other demands.

According to a North Las Vegas Police Department report, four employees of the PetSmart at 6980 N. 5th St. in North Las Vegas went to police on Oct. 24, 2023, with allegations that a store supervisor’s cellphone had been found “recording people in the bathroom” at the store earlier that month.

Following an investigation, an arrest warrant was issued in early 2024 for Michael Black, a Las Vegas man who worked as a store supervisor in 2023.

Black was charged with a felony related to the capturing of images in a private area, according to North Las Vegas court records. He pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor lewd conduct charge in May of 2024 and was given a 180-day suspended sentence and ordered to take an impulse control class, which he completed, according to court records.

According to the police report, Black asked a female PetSmart worker at the store to clean an employee restroom on Oct. 16, 2023, because “the cleaners forgot it.”

Phone fell out of dispenser, police report says

When she pulled a toilet seat covering out of a dispenser, she noticed that a cellphone “fell out of the dispenser,” according to the report, and that it “appeared to be actively recording.” She recognized that the phone belonged to Black, the report said, because it had a sticker that read “your momma” on it.

Later that day, after he realized the phone had been found, Black left the store, but called the employee who found it and asked her to “keep it between them,” according to the report.

The following day, according to the police report, the employee “informed her general manager” of the situation, though the general manager, who is not named in the report, told her to “not tell any of the other girls.”

The report states that Black was fired from the store on Oct. 20, 2023. He had been suspended the day after the phone was found in the bathroom.

On Oct. 23, 2023, according to the report, the four PetSmart employees went to the general manager’s office, where they were told to “not say anything” at the direction of a PetSmart executive who worked at the corporate office in Arizona at the time.

The police report stated that the general manager was told by the executive “not to tell any of the other possible victims or he will lose his job.”

Efforts to reach PetSmart for comment were not successful.

Jimenez’s lawyer, Las Vegas attorney Brian Clark, declined to comment.

The suit alleges that Jimenez found out about the phone being found only after Black sent her an apologetic text message five days after the phone was located.

Once up to speed about what had happened, according to the lawsuit, Jimenez went to the store’s general manager and asked why she hadn’t been notified of the crime by the store’s leadership.

The general manager responded, according to the suit, by saying that “PetSmart corporate did not want to get police involved.”

Jimenez, the lawsuit said, was “constructively discharged” from her employment at the store in April of 2024.

‘Noncontact-based sex crime’

Elizabeth Abdur-Raheem, executive director of the Nevada Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence, said the crime underscores a type of sex crime that often can be overlooked.

“This is a noncontact-based sex crime, but it’s still a sex crime,” Abdur-Raheem said. “Somebody who experiences this type of crime can experience any of the trauma-based impacts of other types of sex crimes, even though society might view this type of sex crime as a little less brutal.”

Abdur-Raheem said it can sometimes be difficult for victims of noncontact sex crimes to find resources to help cope with the aftereffects.

“There is the lingering concern about nonconsensual intimate images and where they might show up,” Abdur-Raheem said.

A North Las Vegas police spokesperson said the phone in question was “confiscated as part of the investigation,” but said he didn’t have any information on what might have been discovered on the device at the time of the investigation.

Contact Bryan Horwath at bhorwath@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BryanHorwath on X.