Aiken socialite charged with voyeurism by SLED for allegedly filming renters

A former Aiken rental property operator has been arrested by the State Law Enforcement Division for secretly video recording two renters in two separate 2001 incidents.

Rhett Riviere, 68, was charged with two counts of voyeurism, or recording videos of another person in a place where they would have a “reasonable expectation of privacy.” Another element of the charge is that the videos were made for sexual gratification, an affidavit attached to a warrant in the case said.

The two people were filmed in the bedroom and the bathroom, the affidavit said.

Riviere turned himself in to Aiken County authorities. He was released on a total $10,000 personal recognizance bond for both counts Thursday afternoon.

County Magistrate Lauren Maurice denied a motion by Columbia attorney Debbie Barbier, who represents two of Riviere’s alleged victims, to give Riviere a high bond.

Barbier told The State newspaper that she and attorneys Ryan Beasley and Wes Few had turned up a hard drive full of approximately 21,000 videos Riviere had made over the years at his rental properties. She described the videos that the attorneys had seen to date as “very troubling.”

The attorneys hired experts to review a cache of digital records from 42 devices SLED had seized from Riviere last year, Barbier said.

Not all of these videos may be invasions of privacy, but some showed young girls undressing, Barbier said.

“Experts we hired to review them were deeply troubled,” said Barbier, who asked anyone who had stayed in Riviere’s rental properties in recent years to contact her.

“I told Magistrate Maurice that he is a danger to the community,” Barbier said. “I told her there were people in these videos having sex, people in the bathroom, taking a shower, getting undressed and going to the bathroom. He has millions of dollars that he can flee with. I asked for a $10 million bond.”

The videos may have come to SLED’s attention after a former fiance of Riviere’s found some of the videos and told him she was going to notify law enforcement, according to a lawsuit on file in Aiken County state court.

Attorney John Harte, who with attorney Joe McCulloch represented Riviere, told The State newspaper that Magistrate Maurice’s bond was entirely appropriate.

“The judge today was dealing only with two charges, both of voyeurism, and the maximum penalty on each one of those is three years in prison or a $500 fine. The bond that was set was consistent with what I would expect any magistrate in South Carolina to do,” Harte said, adding that he has lived in Aiken 50 years and is sure that Riviere does not pose a danger to the community.

“He is presumed innocent until proven guilty,” Harte said, declining to comment on the 21,000 videos Barbier mentioned.

McCulloch told The State that the “thoughtful judge’s response was a fair bond that accommodated alleged victim concerns and the presumption of innocence.”

There is no statute of limitations on crimes in South Carolina, said Barbier, a former federal prosecutor who handles cases in state and federal court.

The case will be prosecuted by the 2nd Circuit Solicitor’s office, headed by Solicitor Bill Weeks, SLED said.

Weeks said that a trial date has not yet been set.

“We’re still investigating,” Weeks said. “There are a lot of computer downloads that we need to look at.”

SLED agents were requested to investigate by the Aiken Department of Public Safety.

Riviere comes from a prominent Aiken horse family.

His late mother, Marilynn Riviere, was a prominent property developer in Maryland and Aiken and developed property in downtown Aiken. She was “a life-long equestrienne and on the board of trustees of Aiken Training Track, which has produced several champion racehorses,” according to an obituary.

Her father was a member of Congress from Ohio, and one of her grandfathers was “an oil tycoon,” another obituary said.

This is not the first time Riviere has been in the news for such charges.

Last May, The State reported that three lawsuits last year brought by young women accused him of secretly video recording them in an Airbnb property he owned in Aiken.

Two of those lawsuits have been settled for “a not insubstantial sum of money,” according to a related lawsuit filed in state court in Aiken County. The third lawsuit is pending.

Meanwhile, another lawsuit alleges that Riviere transferred a 10-acre piece of property worth $2.7 million in Aiken to a corporation controlled by his son to escape the financial consequences of future losses from future invasion of privacy lawsuits.

And in June 2021 SLED brought criminal charges against Riviere, accusing him of voyeurism in the secret video taping of a young woman at one of his properties.

He was released on a $5,000 bond. That case is still pending.

One of the bond’s conditions was that Riviere “shall not market or rent any property via the internet or sites like Airbnb,” according to a bail proceeding document.