CHARLOTTE, N.C. (FOX 46 CHARLOTTE)- In April 2018, Dana Janke came to Charlotte to visit her sister and brother-in-law, Lynn and John Doherty. She was seeking comfort after her husband, a first responder, was suffering from a post-911 illness.

Six months later Lynn called Dana to reveal a disturbing discovery. John had a hidden camera in the alarm clock in the guest bedroom Dana had stayed in. Lynn found dozens of videos of Dana.

“She was telling me there was one after the other after the other,” Dana said, including those of her undressing.

Dana was stunned yet more concerned about the trauma her sister Lynn was experiencing.

“Immediately, she was traumatized. Her breath got catchy. She was looking at the videos, I wasn’t. She could barely breathe,” Dana said.

FOX 46 asked Dana if she ever suspected John would do such a thing.

“Not even a vibe. Not an inappropriate anything. Not a clue.”

Dana is in regular therapy but is still suffering.

“I don’t go into dressing rooms ever. You go to get changed and in my own home, you look to vents to see if something in it. You think every piece of appliance has something in it. You’re always being filmed, psychologically. I buy clothes, I take them home, I don’t ever go into a dressing room, I don’t even want my husband watching me dress and undress. And she still remains in fear “where did the videos go? Are they on dark web? Are people looking at them right now? Do people know who I am?”

Although John Doherty was prosecuted by the Charlotte Mecklenburg District Attorney, his felony case was reduced to a misdemeanor.

He pled “no contest” and served no jail time. Yet, according to the assigned prosecutor, they had “evidence of additional uncharged crimes.”

This includes “pornographic video evidence and photographs of non-consenting women and some teenagers.”

Dana feels John Doherty “hasn’t had a punishment that fits the crime” and is pursuing a civil lawsuit against him as “a last-ditch effort at actually having something of a punishment.”

Although the lawsuit seeks monetary damages, Dana says she does not need the money. She needs “justice.”

FOX 46 spoke to John Doherty’s lawyers who did not provide a comment.

Lynn Petersen consulted her attorney and provided us with this statement:

• I met John Doherty in 2006 and we married in 2012.
• We separated in 2018 when John Doherty abandoned me and our marriage. Our divorce was final in early 2020.
• Beginning with his relocation to Charlotte in late 2016, John Doherty’s behavior became continuously more erratic and culminated in threats to me.
• After we separated, I discovered motion sensor videos on some memory cards John Doherty had left behind. I became aware that John Doherty had invaded the privacy of me and several family members via hidden cameras placed in our home. These devices were designed to be undetectable and sent notifications to his smartphone.
• I never had any prior knowledge about these cameras, and I immediately informed the proper authorities once I found the videos. This invasion of privacy has caused me great psychological and emotional trauma.