After a photo emerged online showing ex-Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez sitting on the toilet in his luxury apartment’s bathroom in New York City, his legal team said they were hunting for the person who took the photo and that they were planning to take legal action.
However, legal experts have said that due to New York’s permissive privacy laws, A-Rod would likely have no case in court and that he had the responsibility to put his blinds down.
“Under current case law, he has no case,” Brad Shear, a privacy lawyer with Digital Armour Group said, according to Fox News. “Under New York law, you better put your blinds down. He’s lucky he wasn’t standing there buck naked.”
Legal experts cited a 2015 case in which an appeals court ruled that images taken through the windows of people in their New York homes and exhibited at an art show did not constitute privacy violation.
The photo showing A-Rod sitting on the toilet in his apartment bathroom is believed to have been snapped by someone who was in an adjacent building on Park Avenue where several Manhattan hedge funds have their offices.
The sneaky photographer was able to snap the photo because the blinds of the bathroom were open.
According to Page Six, the photo shows A-Rod in one of the four bathrooms of the luxurious $17.5 million apartment he shares with his fiancee Jenifer Lopez. He is dressed in a blue shirt, but with his pants down, and texting on his phone while sitting on the bathroom toilet.
The photo surfaced on the internet and went viral on Twitter on Thursday but it was not clear who took it.
A source told Page Six that A-Rod’s lawyers were working to find the photographers and that they were exploring legal action.
“It is a clear breach of privacy. The photo was obviously taken from the building next door, from a floor possibly parallel to Alex’s apartment,” the source said. “One of the hedge funds in the building next door will be getting a big lawsuit.”
But it wasn’t clear from which hedge fund’s office the photo was taken. According to Page Six, there are several hedge fund offices in the building next door to A-Rod’s apartment.