Family sues Disney after former employee secretly records up teen's dress in 2023: report
Jorge Diaz Vega was an employee of Disney for around six years when he engaged in an act of 'upskirting' video voyeurism, the lawsuit claimed.
While working at Hollywood Studios in a store called Star Wars' Galaxy Edge, Vega walked up to the minor and intentionally dropped a toy in front of her before placing his phone under her dress and recording.
SeaWorld Orlando faces fine after killer whale injured trainer
According to the lawsuit, the minor realized Vega was filming or photographing up her dress and began hysterically crying and screaming before running to a nearby restroom and dry-heaving, vomiting, and suffering a panic attack.
Disney security was contacted who then contacted the Orange County Sheriff's Office which took over the investigation.
Vega admitted to the incident as well as many others and his phone was seized where they found more than 600 images and videos of victims on his phone, the lawsuit said.
Before this incident, Vega was caught recording a female co-worker and was reported to a Disney employee supervisor, WESH said.
More customers claim money disappeared from Tampa Bay kitchen remodeling company
'Disney, through its employees, agents, servants, and/or apparent agents knew or should have known of Jorge Diaz Vega's propensity to commit acts of video voyeurism and to otherwise film other employees and guests without their consent and Disney ratified the proper misconduct of its employee when it failed to take appropriate action to prevent the incident from occurring,' the lawsuit said.
The family is accusing Disney and Vega of invasion of privacy, negligence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Vega is also facing two criminal cases for video voyeurism.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
If you like theme parks, thank Disneyland
If you enjoy theme parks or any immersive themed experience, you have Disneyland to thank. 'Half of the stories that I tell that are not about Disneyland start with somebody went to Disneyland and then they came back home and they tried to build their own Disney,' said filmmaker and theme park historian Kevin Perjurer, whose pop culture channel Defunctland has more than 2 million followers on YouTube. 'Something as small as a regional laser tag place probably even has someone designing that has Disneyland or at least the quality of what an Imagineer would do on the mind.' That's because Disneyland defined what we know of as theme parks today. Here's how. Park history By no means was Disneyland the first amusement park or themed guest experience. Widely cited Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen opened in 1843, more than a century before Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955. Domestic parks like Luna Park on Coney Island and Beverly Park kiddieland in Los Angeles – which Perjurer notes had a western-themed section – also predated Disneyland. World's fairs had themed experiences, too. What set Disneyland apart was "really this concept of full immersion and a full themed experience connected with a storyline,' said Jakob Wahl, president and CEO of the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions. 'Creating those lands, which were kind of immersive in their own space, I think that is what Walt Disney then ultimately changed and drove to perfection.' At Disneyland, guests could step into stories they already knew and discover new ones dreamed up by Imagineers, like Disney Legend Bob Gurr, who designed ride vehicles for iconic attractions like Autopia, Matterhorn Bobsleds, Haunted Mansion and the Monorail. 'I was one of the first 18 people that was assigned by Walt to work specifically on the design of Disneyland,' he said. 'He always saw this as storytelling. Storytelling, you know you can draw a picture, it's a story. You can make a movie, it's a story ... or you can do it in 3D, call it an amusement park.' Disneyland's 70th anniversary: How the resort is celebrating happy Inspiration from films Bruce Vaughn, president and chief creative officer of Walt Disney Imagineering, said Walt Disney and the original Imagineers used filmmaking techniques to tell stories in the park's physical environment. 'There's cross dissolve, so it's a slow fade from the hub into Adventureland, where it isn't just a hard cut,' he explained. 'Or a long shot, like as you're going down Main Street, suddenly in the distance, there's this fantasy castle ... It draws you through.' The park's hub-and-spoke design has been copied by parks around the world, but the caliber of Disneyland's craftsmanship wasn't easily imitated. 'I mean, you're pulling upon some of the greatest illustrators, some of the greatest sculptors, all these people that were employed by Disney,' Perjurer said, highlighting how Disney was producing groundbreaking films like '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' as the park was being built. 'That film, the scenic design just blew people away, and so the ability to walk through something with that level of scenic design or even trying to accomplish the level of scenic design ... was definitely mind-blowing to people.' New technology Over the years, Disney Imagineers have pioneered many new ways to tell stories. Gurr remembers Walt Disney calling him into a workshop when the first audio animatronic of President Abraham Lincoln was being developed in secret. 'He said, 'Bobby, I want half as much weight and twice as many motions, and I want you to get started now,'' he said, adding that he never could cure Disney of calling him Bobby. That Lincoln audio animatronic went on to mesmerize audiences at the 1964 New York World's Fair before moving to Disneyland, where a new audio animatronic of Walt Disney just debuted during the resort's 70th anniversary celebration. Audio animatronics are now commonplace at theme parks around the world. Another innovation Disneyland guests can still experience today is the ride technology on Indiana Jones Adventure. 'Since it's an Indiana Jones story, it's got to feel like you're off road,' Vaughn said. 'So you had to put a simulator on top of a vehicle to give you the sense that you were going over all this terrain and that you were on a suspension bridge and then you dove down deeper than you actually did.' He described Imagineers as magicians more than technologists, helping guests suspend their disbelief, to embrace the magic like kids again. Guests who want to keep the magic going can stay on property at Disneyland's resort hotels. Wahl notes other destinations around the world have copied Disney's model of offering themed accommodations onsite. 'The destination or attraction evolves from a one-day visit to a multi-day experience,' he said. 'You can forget about the daily concerns, and people want to have that for a day, but they also want to have that for the night.' Listening to guests One thing Disneyland guests could not get past in the park's early days was the first-person format of some Fantasyland dark rides. 'Originally it was like a simulation where you were the main character of that story, and you were seeing a point of view, while the films were from a third-party perspective,' Perjurer said. 'You are Snow White. You are Peter Pan. You are Mr. Toad ... and so the characters weren't in the rides.' Those rides were reimagined to include the main characters of their respective stories. 'We had to kind of redesign a lot of details in the park to suit how people actually behave,' Gurr recalled, but that was OK. '(Disney) wasn't afraid to try to do things even though he didn't know how to do it, but he became pretty good at a lot of things.' Many other theme parks also offer what Vaughn calls book reports, rides recapping stories with condensed highlights. However, in a full circle moment, Disney's newer attractions again invite guests to become characters in stories, like at Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge. 'You get to pilot the Millennium Falcon,' Vaughn said. 'You're taken as a spy. And we know that that's where Walt was going. One thing I love about Walt Disney is that he was always about immersing into stories.' It's those experiential stories that have kept guests coming back for 70 years. In his Disneyland opening day remarks, Walt Disney said, 'Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.' Seventy years later, it's still doing that.
UPI
an hour ago
- UPI
Lily James explores an actor's loneliness in 'Finally Dawn'
1 of 5 | Lily James, seen at the 2023 Fashion Awards in London, stars in "Finally Dawn." File Photo by Rune Hellestad/UPI | License Photo LOS ANGELES, July 17 (UPI) -- Lily James says she related to the themes of loneliness in her new film, Finally Dawn, in theaters Friday. James, 36, plays fictional 1950s Hollywood movie star Josephine Esperanto. Josephine takes an Italian extra, Mimosa (Rebecca Antonaci), under her wing on the set of a Roman epic, and brings her to an all-night afterparty. In a recent interview with UPI, James said Josephine is a cautionary tale for investing too much of one's life in a persona. "In Josephine Esperanto, I was exploring what that loneliness looks like," James said. "I don't think she knows who she is anymore and is lonely." Josephine does not open up with that kind of vulnerability to Mimosa, nor to her co-star (Joe Keery) or director (Willem Dafoe). James said that kind of loneliness is not limited to celebrities. "That's a human problem," James said. "How do we find real happiness? How do we not be lonely? How do we find validation from within instead of without? So it's quite profound." James said she too struggles with balancing her career with her private life. She had her first role in 2010 on the BBC series Just William. Her other credits include playing Disney's Cinderella, the musical Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, and portraying real-life celebrity Pamela Anderson in the FX series Pam & Tommy. "I think part of loving what you do is a gift and a curse because it does consume me," James said. "Especially in art, those boundaries become really blurred because you inhabit another character. You inhabit another world alongside these actors and it's a magical world but it can really take over your life." One way James helped divide her career and real life was by taking a stage name. She took James as her professional name, after her father, Jamie Thompson. In private, she is still Lily Thompson. James suspects Josephine Esperanto is a stage name too, though Josephine seemingly lives it full time. "There's sort of you and the actor version, kind of a healthy boundary there," James said. "So I think stage names are kind of great." There is only one scene in Finally Dawn in which Josephine lets her guard down. Mimosa is not supposed to witness it, but she wanders in unbeknownst to Josephine. "I think you see a woman at the end sort of undressing and unraveling, taking the armor of her life, this pretend character that she's built up," James said, adding that Josephine "realizes, 'What is there left underneath? I haven't nurtured it and I haven't given it the time it deserves.' There's something deeply, deeply melancholic and Shakespearean about that." So too are her plans for Mimosa, who is just a local girl and did not ask to join in Hollywood debauchery. "I think she wants to birth Mimosa into a star and destroy her right at the same time," James said. "There's cruelty and love, a maternal instinct and a kind of destruction." To capture the performance of a '40s movies star, James studied real actors like Ava Gardner, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis and Monica Vitti. "I really just tried to enjoy watching their skill and elegance and beauty," she said. James recently wrapped filming Cliffhanger, a re-imagining of the 1993 Sylvester Stallone action hit. She co-stars with Pierce Brosnan under director Jaume Collet-Serra. "I'm now obsessed with climbing, the athletic side of it, but also the meditative state you have to go into when you're climbing," she said. "I was in the Dolemites climbing for six weeks with a sort of skeleton crew scaling mountains. We had to shut down multiple times because of snowstorms. It was a very bonding experience." She also hopes to revisit her character in Edgar Wright's Baby Driver. Wright has confirmed he wrote a sequel, but James is supportive of the director's forthcoming new film. "I've seen a script," she said of the Baby Driver sequel. "Mainly, I'm just so excited about Running Man with Glen [Powell]. That trailer is absolutely phenomenal. I was completely blown away by it so I'm so excited to see that."
Forbes
5 hours ago
- Forbes
Live-Action ‘Lilo & Stitch' Gets Streaming Premiere Date
Lilo (Maia Kealoha) and Stitch (voice of Chris Sanders) in "Lilo & Stitch." Disney's Lilo & Stitch, the blockbuster live-action adaptation of the 2002 animated classic, is coming soon to digital streaming. Lilo & Stitch opened in theaters on May 23. In the film, a furry blue alien experiment gone awry is sent to Earth where he lands in Hawaii and befriends Lilo (Maia Kealoha) and an orphan being cared for by her teenage sister, Nani (Sydney Agudong). Before too long, Stitch (voice of the animated film's director Chris Sanders), who is believed to be a dog — and a very mischievous one at that — helps the heartbroken Lilo and Nani feel like they have a family again. Directed by Marcel the Shell with Shoes On filmmaker Dean Fleischer Camp, Lilo & Stitch also stars Zach Galifianakis, Billy Magnussen, Tia Carrere, Courtney B. Vance, Amy Hill and Kaipo Dudoit and the voice of Hannah Waddingham. Lilo & Stitch is expected to arrive on digital streaming via premium video on demand on Tuesday, July 22, as confirmed by a new listing on Prime Video. The film is available for pre-order for purchase for $29.99. Since PVOD rentals are typically $5 less, Lilo & Stitch will be available to rent for 48 hours for $24.99. In addition to Prime Video, the film will be available to purchase or rent on PVOD on a variety of digital outlets, including Apple TV, Fandango at Home and YouTube. How Was 'Lilo & Stitch' Received by Audiences And Critics? Lilo & Stitch to date has made $415.6 million in domestic ticket sales and $580.1 million internationally for a worldwide box office tally of $995.8 million against a $100 million production budget before prints and advertising costs, per The Numbers. The film earned a 71% 'fresh' rating from Rotten Tomatoes critics based on 206 reviews. The RT Critics Consensus reads, 'Recapturing the adorable charm of the original if not quite matching its rambunctious sense of imagination, Lilo & Stitch emerges out of the crate as one of the better live-action remakes of a Disney classic.' Audiences, meanwhile, gave Lilo & Stitch a 92% 'fresh' Popcornmeter score based on 10,000-plus verified user ratings. The RT audience summary reads, 'Old and new fans beware: Cuteness and mischief team up in Lilo & Stitch to make sure nobody gets left behind.' Rated PG, Lilo & Stitch will be released on PVOD on July 22.
