MOCKSVILLE, N.C. — Court documents show a child as young as 12 months old was caught in the footage that was recorded in the women's bathroom at La Vita E Bella restaurant.
The owner, Luigi Carciati has been behind bars since last Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023, and his bond recently doubled following 20 more charges.
The investigation started with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, that’s where the sheriff’s office got information that Carciati was accessing child pornography over the Internet.
Since the act of watching child porn is illegal, deputies obtained a search warrant and searched his home.
There they found child pornography which led to Carciati being charged with 20 counts of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor.
During the home search, they also found photos and videos that led them back to La Vita E Bella, Carciati’s restaurant in Mocksville.
While searching the restaurant, they found a camera hidden in the baseboard of the ladies' room.
This discovery led to Carciati being charged with 10 counts of felony secret peeping and 10 counts of second-degree exploitation of a minor.
Davie County Sheriff J. D. Hartman believes there will be more charges to come.
“Some of the charges will be similar, you know, if your child exploitation by just viewing child pornography that’s a crime so some of those charges would be similar even from the restaurant, for viewing the underage folks at the restaurant, you will see a difference too for some of that, could be manufacturing type charges because he’s actually making the videos related to underage people at the restaurant. So, that requires us to try and identify people.”
At this point in the investigation, Sheriff Hartman believes Carciati had been recording people in the bathroom for years.
Since deputies are still searching through digital storage units and devices, he doesn’t know exactly how long the camera was there.
“I want everybody to understand there are literally thousands and thousands of items for us to go through on these digital devices so identifying people, going through all the devices is a very time-consuming thing. It's not going to happen in a week or our two weeks it’s going to be extremely time-consuming," explained Sheriff Hartman.
People who live and work near downtown Mocksville said the restaurant has been closed ever since Carciati was arrested.
Many people want to know what Carciati was doing with the footage. We asked the sheriff, he said he had no comment on that at this point in the investigation.
Following the most recent charges, Carciati's bond has been upgraded to $1,000,000. He is currently incarcerated.
People who have reason to believe they could be on the footage can call the sheriff's office at (336) 936-2985 or send them an email.