Wedding photographer sentenced for surreptitiously recording bride changing clothes
A former Cloquet-based photographer has been placed on two years of supervised probation for surreptitiously recording a bride changing clothes before her wedding Mitchell Donald Ringness now of Pine City was sentenced Wednesday in Freeborn County District Court after pleading guilty in October to a gross misdemeanor count of interference with privacy Ringness who at the time operated MR Photography in Cloquet reportedly recorded the client without her consent at The Barn at Chapeau Shores in Albert Lea in October According to court documents Ringness former girlfriend gave a flash drive to the Cloquet Police Department in April She disclosed she was suspicious after seeing Ringness come out of the bathroom with his laptop in the middle of the night and she stated finding photographs and videos of naked women that appeared to have been secretly taken Administration stated one video recorded from a low angle proved a bride disrobe and put on her wedding gown Another woman was seen going to get someone named Mitchell and a photographer with the same body build as Ringness was seen entering the room to begin taking photos before the video clip ended A Cloquet detective turned the incident over to Albert Lea police after comparing the video with photographs posted on Ringness Facebook page An Albert Lea detective reviewed the video and online photographs and visited the wedding venue in person to confirm it was the location of the video The bride in the video stated police she employed Ringness to photograph her wedding but had not consented to being recorded while getting dressed Ringness previously pleaded guilty to a gross misdemeanor criminal sexual conduct charge in but had the charge dismissed after he served days in jail and two years on probation Under his new terms of supervision Judge Ross Leuning ordered Ringness to complete sex offender healing and undergo a mental robustness evaluation and follow any recommendations Ringsness also must refrain from possessing any sexually explicit material and is required to have monitoring program installed on any electronic devices in addition to other standard conditions of probation Related Articles Derrick Thompson s trial begins in deaths of women Police looking for hit-and-run driver who injured pedestrians in Falcon Heights Man fatally shot in St Paul ID d as -year-old Crypto crime spills over from behind the screen to real-life violence Pair sentenced in human smuggling scenario that left Indian family dead on Minnesota confines
