SMU Law Student Accused of Secret Recordings

An SMU law student is accused of secretly filming people in bathrooms and bedrooms at his Dallas apartment and his family’s lake house near Lake Travis. 

Mitchell Wasek, 28, faces 28 counts of invasive visual recording, Travis County court records show. Mitchell was arrested Oct. 3 in Travis County and released the same day on a $280,000 bond, the Travis County Sheriff’s Office confirmed. 

An SMU spokesperson confirmed Mitchell Wasek, reportedly the son of Buc-ee’s co-founder Donald Wasek, is enrolled at the university’s law school.

“In response to this incident, campus police are taking additional security measures at the Law School facilities,” said SMU spokeswoman Dianne Anderson. “Currently, there is no evidence of illicit recordings or other violations related to this case on our campus.”

Anderson said those with information about the case related to the case are asked to contact the SMU Police Department at 214-768-3333. 

The case was initially reported to authorities in May when guests visiting Mitchell at his family’s lake house found a charging port with a hidden camera plugged into a bathroom wall, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

One of the guests who works in cybersecurity discovered the camera and, upon finding it, they left the residence, the affidavit states. 

The guests found videos of themselves and others in bathrooms and bedrooms of the lake house and Mitchell’s residence in Dallas on the camera’s memory card, according to the affidavit. 

“They were unaware that the recording existed in the bedroom and bathroom and indicated they did not consent to being recorded or photographed,” a Travis County sheriff’s deputy wrote in the affidavit.

Law enforcement reviewed the footage and found 68 video files with at least 13 people recorded “using toilets, showering, changing clothes, and/or having sex,” the affidavit states.

Two of the guests filed a police report in Dallas and turned the camera into Dallas police, according to the affidavit. 

Videos on the memory card date back to 2021 and also included footage from an Austin condo and a vacation home in Telluride, Colorado, owned by Mitchell Wasek’s parents, the affidavit states.

Amazon purchase history records also linked purchases of multiple spy cameras and hidden cameras to Mitchell Wasek, according to the affidavit.