flash: Man Sues Over Sperm Bank Hidden Camera – July 20, 2006
Claiming that he found a video camera hidden in the ceiling of a sperm bank’s “donation room,” a Los Angeles man is suing the firm for negligence and emotional distress. Ken Rigberg, 27, charges that he discovered the pinhole camera during a June 2005 visit to Pasadena’s Pacific Reproductive Services. According to Rigberg’s Los Angeles Superior Court complaint, a copy of which you’ll find below, he “noticed an unusual hole in the ceiling tile” of a private donation room, where he had just finished masturbating into a cup. Upon inspection, Rigberg realized that “there was a hidden surveillance camera on top of the ceiling tile, with the lens of the camera positioned to…capture the activity within the private donor room.” Rigberg is described in the lawsuit as a “regular sperm donor” who went to Pacific “to provide an honorable and essential benefit to his community.” According to Pacific’s web site, it pays men $100 per donation, and that most donors contribute “once or twice weekly over a minimum one-year period or 65 donations.” Rigberg’s attorney, S. Edmond El Dabe, provided TSG with a police photograph of the seized ceiling cam equipment, an image he received from Pacific’s insurance carrier. El Dabe said Pasadena cops have been unable to determine who placed the video camera in the donation room ceiling. The lawsuit, which was filed in late-May and does not specify monetary damages, asserts that Rigberg has, among other things, suffered fear, shame, humiliation, and chagrin as a result of discovering the surveillance gadget. An “emotionally traumatized” Rigberg, who had been visiting Pacific for more than a year, “no longer donates sperm, as he fears future illegal surveillance of his private acts,” the complaint notes.
I was accepted by a sperm bank in Kansas City in the early 90s to be a donor. Process was more extensive than assumed, but the real problem was resisting the urge to masturbate between donations which were only $35 at the time. Needless to say, I didn’t make a lot of money before the clinic terminated me after less than a year. You were told not to ejaculate for at least 48-72 to hours before each donation, which wasn’t easy for me at the time. I do remember getting a rush from going there as often there were attractive women in the waiting room who I am sure were aware of why I was there.