Ex-Grizzlies PA announcer charged with making upskirt videos in church
The Memphis Grizzlies announced Tuesday that they have parted ways with longtime public address announcer Rick Trotter, after a police investigation into the circumstances of Trotter’s firing from his day job at a Memphis church resulted in an arrest warrant on four counts of photographing people without consent. According to the warrant, the charges stem from allegations that Trotter was “making upskirt videos of church members […] while services were going on.”
Trotter, 40, worked at Downtown Church on Memphis, but was let go on May 27, 2016, as “the result of deception and moral failures of a sexual nature,” according to a statement published by the church on Tuesday. Two days after Trotter’s dismissal, Memphis police began investigating him, and that investigation led to the warrant issued Tuesday, according to Jody Callahan of the Memphis Commercial Appeal:
The warrant added that there were at least three reported victims, and that Trotter was “making upskirt videos of church members,” apparently “while services were going on.”
Just after 6 p.m. Tuesday, Trotter, 40, was booked into the Shelby County Jail. He was being held on $70,000 bond, officials said.
The Grizzlies parted ways with Trotter last month, but didn’t announce that until Tuesday, when news of the arrest warrant broke.
“Rick Trotter is no longer affiliated with the Grizzlies organization. We have no further comment on the matter,” the team said in a statement.
Trotter waived his arraignment on the four counts during an initial court appearance on Wednesday, according to Kayleigh Skinner of the Commercial Appeal:
According to arrest affidavits, Trotter was “caught kneeling behind a woman during worship service holding a cell phone taking videos underneath her dress. On May 21, four women signed a statement confirming they were the individuals on the videos found on Trotter’s church-issued laptop.”
Trotter waived his rights and gave a signed, written statement admitting he took the videos of each woman, the affidavit said.
Trotter joined the Grizzlies in 2006, with no prior experience as an announcer. He’d been a manager at a Chick fil A in Atlanta before moving to Memphis to work at his church, got the PA job “after sending in an audition tape he had made in his two-bedroom apartment,” according to Geoff Calkins of the Commercial Appeal, and, over the course of the next decade, became the voice of the Grizzlies’ rise from expansion-market also-ran to one of the most consistently competitive and most clearly defined teams in the NBA.
Trotter made no comment in court on Wednesday. He’s due back in court on Sept. 20.
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