SAN ANTONIO – Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar is putting out a call for other potential victims to come forward in a case involving a local photographer accused of sexual assault.

John Steven Lill, 48, is accused of having sex with a client, a woman in her 20s, after giving her alcohol.

Salazar said the woman told investigators the drink, which she believed was wine, made her woozy.

“To the point where she may have lost consciousness,” Salazar said. “When she came to, the next thing that she remembers is the suspect was urging her to bathe, we believe, to cover up evidence.”

Salazar said tests are being done to determine whether anything else may have been added to the drink.

The woman told investigators the incident happened at Lill’s home outside Boerne this past Saturday.

She told them she hired Lill to take boudoir-style photos of her.

Salazar said the woman told investigators she arrived at Lill’s home with a friend, but Lill sent that person away, saying the photo session would take a long time.

The sheriff said after the alleged attack, the woman was able to contact someone she knows, and that person then called 911.

Deputies later arrested the suspect at his home.

When questioned by investigators, Lill admitted to giving the woman wine and to having sex with her, Salazar said. “Of course, obviously, he’s claiming that this was a consensual nature. The victim states otherwise,” the sheriff said.

Although Lill was booked into jail, he has since posted bond and been released.

The photo session, Salazar said, appears to have been intended as a side job for Lill.

KSAT 12 News found out he also worked on staff as a photographer at USAA.

Salazar said there is no evidence at this point that anything happened involving the company.

Still, a spokesman for USAA said Lill was terminated immediately after the company was notified about his arrest.

Christian Bove also said USAA is cooperating fully with the criminal investigation.

In the meantime, sheriff’s investigators urge anyone who may have been a potential victim to call them at 210-335-6000.

Court records show the photographer accepted a plea deal in court. A judge ordered them to pay $900 in restitution within six months.

COWETA COUNTY, Ga. — Allison Gardner dreamed of the perfect wedding day as she began making plans. 

Her family would fly in from across the country to watch her get married. She would wear one dress for the ceremony and another for the reception. 

And a photographer would be there to capture the memories. She said that’s how her perfect day began to unravel the morning of her wedding.

“She said that she was having some kind of medical problem and she wasn’t going to be there, so of course, I was freaking out,” Gardner said. “I was saying, like, can I get a refund? I needed to pay somebody, like, right now.”

11Alive contacted the wedding photographer — Danielle Caldwell — who said she had every intention of showing up to Allison’s wedding until she fell ill the morning of.

“This wasn’t done out of malice. I was getting ready for her wedding, already dressed and loading my equipment, when I started feeling very light-headed, and my chest started pulling and hurting badly,” she wrote in a Facebook message. “The money was used towards bills to pay rent as any job would be… so that’s why I didn’t have the money.”

Gardener said she felt trapped and decided to warn others about her experience on a Facebook group. She was surprised by some of the comments.

“I probably took off work 3 to 4 different times and never got any photos,” one person wrote.

 “Same exact thing happened to me,” another posted in response to the commenter.

Gardner decided to take her concerns to a Coweta County Judge, who issued a warrant for Caldwell. 

In October, Caldwell cut a plea deal with a state court judge, who ordered her to serve a year on probation and pay Gardener $900 in restitution within six months.

Gardner said she’s only received a fraction of that money so far.

“That six months was in April… I’m still fighting this,” Gardner said. “It’s not even about the money anymore.”

The photographer told 11Alive that this one mistake won’t define her as a person and that she has learned from this.

“This issue has already been handled through the courts. I believe this is nothing more than a plot of malice because she hasn’t been paid off by the estimated time,” Caldwell said. “I have an extension until June 7th that’s been probation approved… In conclusion, Allison will get paid off before June 7th.”

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SAN ANTONIO – A local photographer is facing charges tonight after being arrested by Bexar County Sheriff’s Deputies.

The Sheriff’s Office says 48-year-old John Lill is facing a charge of sexual assault, stemming from a recent photoshoot.

A woman told investigators she hired Lill as her boudoir photographer.

During the photoshoot, he offered her a drink, and then she passed out. She has accused Lill of assaulting her.

Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar held a news conference Wednesday to talk about the allegations against 48-year-old John Lill.

“We believe that he at the very least, gave the victim alcohol to the point where she may have become intoxicated,” said Sheriff Salazar.

Wednesday afternoon a woman who said she had gone through a similar photoshoot with Lill about three years ago.

“I’m sad and heartbroken and hurt that other women experienced that,” she said.

The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said she’s known Lill for more than 20 years.

She said he contacted her for a boudoir photoshoot after finding out she was moving to San Antonio.

“My experience was he had champagne there. He wanted to encourage me to drink and wanted me to get into the shower and in the bathtub. I did not feel comfortable. I felt he was using the photos for his own personal entertainment value,” she said.

She said she remembers everything, including an alleged indecent proposal from Lill for a follow-up photoshoot. Now, she said this is her reason for speaking out.

“I want to take back the power I feel he stole from me. He may have taken something away from you but you can take it back. You can come forward and hold him accountable,” she said.

The woman has reached out to the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office to share her experience.

We also spoke with Oscar McAnally who has been a boudoir photographer in San Antonio for 18 years.

In an interview with us, he highlighted the level of trust between a photographer and their model.

“They need to feel comfortable with me,” said McAnally. “And again, make sure they understand that they are in charge is their session.”

McAnally says, for people looking to hire photographers within the city, there are certain things to look out for.

“There’s always little things that you need to cover yourself,” said McAnally. “I don’t shoot anybody that is not 21 years old. I ask ‘so what can I do to make you feel comfortable?'”

Since the arrest, Lill has been terminated from his position at USAA as a photographer.

Earlier this week, a hubbub surfaced on the North Side of Chicago. On Tuesday night, the Chicago Cubs barred a popular fan photographer from entering Wrigley Field. But less than 24 hours later, a temporary resolution was made.

Twitter/X user @MBDChicago posted on Wednesday afternoon that he was able to enter Wrigley Field with no issues, a day after posting about how security confiscated his camera. He claimed the Cubs reached out to him and granted him temporary permission to return to the ballpark.

“Hoping to work things out longer term, but grateful to be able to bring you photos again on this beautiful day. Thanks, again, to everyone who enjoys the photos and the Cubs,” MBDChicago posted.

An update:

The @cubs reached out this morning and gave me permission to bring my camera into today’s game. Hoping to work things out longer term, but grateful to be able to bring you photos again on this beautiful day. Thanks, again, to everyone who enjoy the photos and the Cubs https://t.co/FUm8mpZuLD pic.twitter.com/eS197c7D3U

— MBDChicago (@MBDChicago) May 8, 2024

The popular photographer has gained a following online over the years. He currently has 5,735 followers on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, and has been doing great work for a long time.

Last night, one person who discovered the controversy suggested it could have been an overzealous security guard. While a long-term solution still needs to be ironed out, it’s a good sign to see that this was dusted up quickly. With the Cubs enjoying a successful start to the season, this could have bellowed into a nightmare if they continued to bar MBDChicago from Wrigley Field.

Suffice it to say, the confines were friendlier at Wrigley from Wednesday to Tuesday.

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Gregory Bull began covering the U.S.-Mexico border in 1994 as a newspaper photographer at the Brownsville Herald in Texas. Since then, he has covered the border from both sides for The Associated Press, based in Mexico and later along the California side in San Diego. On Monday, together with staff photographers Eric Gay, Fernando Llano, Marco Ugarte and Eduardo Verdugo, and longtime AP freelance photographers Christian Chavez, Felix Marquez and Ivan Valencia, Bull won the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography for images that captured the harrowing global migration crisis through the Americas, a growing calamity not often covered at the human level. The photographers showed every step of the migrants’ journey, with Bull focusing on the border. Here’s what he had to say about creating this extraordinary image.

Why this photo

As the public health order that allowed the United States to quickly turn away migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border enacted during the Covid-19 pandemic ( Title 42 ) expired in 2023, many people seeking asylum were caught in between two border walls separating Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego. Hundreds of people waited anxiously, unsure of how long they would be living in this area — not quite in the United States but no longer in Mexico. Many spent all they had to get to this point in their journey. They had no way of knowing how much longer they needed to hold out.

This picture was taken after a person who had heard about the people stuck in limbo drove to the area with blankets and other items to donate. As she passed out items, word spread, and she became overwhelmed by people – and lacked enough items to give. Arms were thrust through the bars that make up the final border wall, as people started to realize there was not enough for everybody.

People frantically but politely continued to plead for supplies. My hope, at the moment I shot this, was that maybe it might convey that sense of frantic disorder and urgency that we were seeing all along the border.

How I made this photo

There is no real secret recipe for this kind of photo. It takes some patience, and an interconnectedness with the people on both sides of the border. I think pictures such as this one often look like the photographer aggressively pushed their way forward. But it’s more about connecting with people, biding your time, achieving a level of trust to where you can kind of disappear, hide in plain sight and wait for those elements you need to convey that feeling of urgency. Technically, you just need to have enough depth of field and a wide enough angle of view to allow for a larger “stage.”

Why this photo works

The border wall bars provide a dependable vertical pattern, so it was kind of a matter of looking for diagonals to break up that pattern. I had similar frames before, but I feel like the woman’s hand at right was what finally started to bring this picture together. But, design elements aside, I think this picture mostly works because of the look of despair on the face of the woman in the center. For me, her face sort of embodied the overall emotion most people were grappling with.

For more extraordinary AP photography, click here.

Gregory Bull, The Associated Press