Lawsuit Alleges New Phone Had Nude Images Of Sprint Store Employees

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A lawsuit filed by a Southland father claims a phone he bought for his underage son contained pornographic images of sales representatives from the same Sprint store where he made the purchase.

Arsen Garibyan filed the lawsuit Tuesday against Sprint Corp. and Nextel of California Inc. on behalf of his son in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The suit - which alleges breach of contract, fraud, breach of the implied warranty of merchantability and negligent infliction of emotional distress - also claims the phone was used rather than new, as Garibyan had presumed.

In October 2011, Garibyan purchased two phones as part of a cellular phone service package at the Sprint store on Lake Avenue in Pasadena, according to the complaint.

When Garibyan returned home and opened the phones — which were packaged in new boxes along with the instruction manuals — his son discovered the images, the lawsuit states.

"After a few minutes, (the boy) started asking, 'Daddy, what is this?'" the suit states. "When Mr. Garibyan looked at the telephone in (his son's) hand, to his shock, horror and disgust, (the child) was looking at pornographic photos and videos contained on one of the newly purchased phones."

The images included "full-body naked as well as genital-focused graphic pictures and videos" of Sprint Nextel sales representatives, according to the suit.

A Sprint spokesperson issued the following statement via email to KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO: "This incident occurred at a retail store in Pasadena that was selling Sprint products. Sprint does not condone this behavior. The sales representatives allegedly implicated were NOT Sprint employees. We terminated our relationship with this dealer shortly after the incident. Our investigation into this matter continues."

A similar lawsuit against Sprint was filed last October after a Georgia woman and her 13-year-old daughter found pornographic images on phones they purchased from a Dekalb County RadioShack in June 2011.

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