Mark R. Sullivan, 60, of Brockton, was back in Boston Municipal Court on Tuesday to be arraigned on 69 additional counts of photographing the sexual or intimate parts of a child, one month after his arrest for using sunglasses fitted with a camera to record children at the Frog Pond playground on Boston Common. The new counts cover about 15 children between the ages of 2 and 8, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office. Sullivan, a Level 3 sex offender with ten prior child sex convictions, has been held on $250,000 bail since his first arraignment on August 18. He has pleaded not guilty and is presumed innocent.
This piece explains what the statute actually prohibits, why one afternoon at a playground can produce 70 counts, what Level 3 means and why it matters at sentencing, and the question the case raises that Massachusetts has not answered: what a camera in a pair of glasses does to the law of public places.
What happened, according to police
Boston police were called to the Frog Pond at about 1 p.m. on Friday, August 14, by witnesses who said a man was recording children in the playground with a camera built into his sunglasses and with his phone. According to the department’s statement, “additional witnesses stated the suspect used the glasses to record a family who was attempting to change their children, who were wrapped in a towel for privacy. When the family attempted to move due to the suspect’s behavior, he followed them, scanning the children up and down with the camera sunglasses.”
Witnesses confronted him. Police say he took the glasses off and tried to break them with his hands, then told officers a group had pulled the glasses off his face and assaulted him. Officers seized the glasses and the phone, obtained a warrant, and arrested him at his Brockton home on August 18. At that arraignment Judge Paul Treseler rejected the prosecutor’s request for $100,000 bail and the defense’s request for $1,000 and set bail at $250,000, with GPS home confinement, no contact with children, no internet, and an order to stay out of Boston if he posts. “His record is bad,” the judge said. “It’s bad.” He has not posted.
The 69 new counts, announced by District Attorney Kevin Hayden’s office, follow the forensic review of the glasses and the phone. “This is a very disturbing set of facts,” Hayden said, “made all the more disturbing by occurring in a place where many families and children go to enjoy beautiful scenery and summer weather.”
The statute
The charge is under G.L. c. 272, § 105, the law Massachusetts rewrote in 2014 after the Supreme Judicial Court held that the prior version did not reach “upskirt” photography of a clothed woman on the MBTA. The statute now has three tiers. The first covers secretly recording a person who is nude or partially nude where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. The second covers secretly recording “the sexual or other intimate parts of a person under or around the person’s clothing” when a reasonable person would believe those parts would not be visible to the public. The third is the child provision:
“Whoever willfully photographs, videotapes or electronically surveils, with the intent to secretly conduct or hide such activity, the sexual or other intimate parts of a child under the age of 18 under or around the child’s clothing to view or attempt to view the child’s sexual or other intimate parts when a reasonable person would believe that the person’s sexual or other intimate parts would not be visible to the public shall be punished by imprisonment in the house of correction for not more than 2 1/2 years, by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than 5 years,” or by a fine. The statute defines “sexual or other intimate parts” to include the genitals, buttocks and pubic area “whether naked or covered by clothing or undergarments,” and “electronically surveils” to include recording by “camera, cellular or other wireless communication device.”
Three things follow. The child provision does not require that the child be nude; recording under or around clothing is enough. It does not require that the child have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the ordinary sense; a public playground qualifies if a reasonable person would believe the intimate parts would not be visible. And it does not require that the recording be distributed or kept. The act of secretly recording is the offense.
Why 70 counts
Each child recorded is a separate victim, and each secret recording of a child’s intimate parts is a separate violation. Fifteen children and a review of two devices produce a count for each identifiable instance. The first complaint in August charged one count, the one the police could establish from witness accounts on the day. The 69 additional counts are the forensic product. This is how child recording cases are ordinarily charged in Massachusetts, and it is why the number is large without being unusual.
Multiple counts matter at sentencing because the maximum, five years in state prison, applies per count, and a judge may impose sentences consecutively. A conviction on even a fraction of 70 counts, for a defendant with this record, exposes him to a state prison sentence measured in decades.
What Level 3 means
The Sex Offender Registry Board classifies registrants by risk of reoffense and degree of dangerousness. Level 3 is the highest. It means the board found, after a hearing, a high risk of reoffense, and it makes the offender’s information publicly available, including online. According to state records reported by CBS Boston, Sullivan has ten convictions for child sex offenses since 1999, including a 10-to-15-year sentence from Plymouth County in 2009 for possession of child pornography, subsequent offense. Prosecutors told the court he had served two separate state prison terms.
The classification does not itself add to the sentence for a new crime. Its effect is on bail, on which the judge relied, and on any sentencing judge’s assessment of the defendant, and on whether the Commonwealth seeks to have him civilly committed as a sexually dangerous person at the end of any sentence, a proceeding under G.L. c. 123A that a record like this one invites.
The camera-glasses question
The glasses in this case have been described as Meta-style camera glasses. The device is lawful to own and to wear. Recording in public is lawful. What the statute prohibits is the secret recording of intimate parts, and the glasses’ only legal significance is that they make the “intent to secretly conduct or hide such activity” element easy to prove: a camera that looks like sunglasses is a camera designed not to be noticed. The statute was written for phones held low; it applies equally to lenses worn on the face.
The harder problem is detection. The witnesses at the Frog Pond noticed because the man also used his phone, followed a family, and stared. Glasses alone, used with more discipline, would not have been noticed. Massachusetts has no law requiring a recording indicator on wearable cameras and no law restricting their use around children. The case will produce a conviction or an acquittal on the recordings that were made. It will not produce a rule about the glasses.
What happens next
The charges are felonies within the District Court’s concurrent jurisdiction, but 70 counts against a Level 3 offender is a case the Suffolk District Attorney can be expected to present to a grand jury and move to Superior Court, where the five-year state prison exposure per count is available. A probable cause hearing had been scheduled; an indictment would replace it. Bail will be revisited in Superior Court if the case moves. The seized devices and the forensic report are the evidence; the witnesses are the corroboration.
Common questions
What is Mark Sullivan charged with?
Seventy counts of photographing the sexual or intimate parts of a child under G.L. c. 272, § 105, one from the August 18 arraignment and 69 added September 15, covering about 15 children ages 2 to 8 at the Boston Common Frog Pond on August 14.
Is it illegal to record children in a public park?
Recording in public is lawful. Secretly recording a child’s sexual or intimate parts, under or around clothing, where a reasonable person would believe those parts would not be visible to the public, is a felony under § 105 regardless of the location.
What is the penalty?
Up to five years in state prison or two and a half years in a house of correction per count. Sentences on multiple counts can run consecutively.
What does Level 3 sex offender mean?
The highest classification by the Sex Offender Registry Board, reflecting a finding of high risk of reoffense. Level 3 information is public, including online.
Is he in custody?
Yes. Bail was set at $250,000 on August 18 with GPS home confinement, no contact with children and no internet if posted. He has not posted.
Facts from the Boston Police Department statement and the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office as reported by CBS Boston (August 18), NBC10 Boston, WHDH and Boston 25 News (September 14 and 15, 2026). G.L. c. 272, § 105 read at malegislature.gov. Mark Sullivan is presumed innocent. General information about Massachusetts law, not legal advice.