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Four more women have been added to one of three lawsuits against the man accused of filming nearly 50 women partially or fully nude in a San Luis Obispo County gym - but the man has yet to be served in any of the suits.
In fact, one law firm served the wrong person.
Kyle L. Combs, 40, of Grover Beach has now been sued by 13 women in total for allegedly secretly recording them at varying degrees of nudity while they stood inside tanning booths at the Arroyo Grande Planet Fitness last year.
Four new anonymous female gym members joined one of the suits: two 36-year-olds, a 45-year-old and a 46-year-old. Like many of the other alleged victims, they say they were filmed nude without their knowledge or consent in the gym’s Black Card Spa tanning booths and later identified themselves in videos to the police.
The Arroyo Grande Police Department found more than 50 videos of 47 unique victims on Combs’ phone, all filmed in the gym’s private tanning booths between January 2025 and December 2025, an April 16 news release from the Arroyo Grande Police Department said. Nearly half of the women have since been identified.
He was also charged by the SLO County District Attorney’s Office for 12 counts of peeping in private rooms, a misdemeanor violation of California’s invasion of privacy law.
His first court appearance for the criminal case will be on Thursday, but he has yet to be served in any of the civil cases against him.
Of the three civil lawsuits Combs faces, one law firm has attempted to serve him but was unable to, as indicated in an application to publish his summons in The Tribune filed with the court on July 10.
Hadsell Stormer Renick and Dai LLP, the first firm to sue Combs originally on behalf of one 18-year-old female college student on April 28, attempted to serve him five times at his gated Grover Beach apartment complex between June 23 and July 5, but each time the server was unable to access the third-floor residence, according to court records.
“There is no access to this residence address,” the server’s notes in the July 10 filing said. “Gated complex. I was able to enter the building through an open door into a stairwell. The stairs only took me to the second floor. Access to the third floor was blocked by a locked door. Waited 5 minutes for someone to enter/exit. No access to third floor. No elevator accessable (sic) in stairwell.”
The judge denied the request to serve Combs via news publication - generally a last resort option that allows a defendant to be notified of a lawsuit with publication of court papers in a newspaper - on July 16 for a “lack of due diligence.”
“We continue to litigate this case fully on behalf of our clients and will ensure that all of the defendants, including Combs, face their day in court where Combs can finally be confronted by the 47 women he so traumatically victimized,” attorney Randy Renick told The Tribune.
As of July 14, Galine, Frye, Fitting & Frangos, LLP - the second law firm to sue Combs on May 28 which just added the four new women to its suit - had not yet attempted to served him, attorney E. Tristan Verburgt told The Tribune.
Law firm served the wrong person
Another firm apparently served the wrong man entirely.
Frederick Law Firm originally filed a complaint on June 3 on behalf of one Jane Roe against a 27-year-old man named Kyle Hunter Combs, according to court records.
The complaint was served to his mother, Grover Beach resident Stacy Combs, on June 12, she told The Tribune.
“Everybody started texting, saying, you know, that it’s my son who did this, and texting my other children, texting him,” she said. “So he was really upset.”
People were posting about her son on Facebook and trying to get his address, thinking he was accused of the crimes, Stacy Combs said.
But they had the wrong guy.
Her son has lived in Arizona since December 2025, before the first police report from the Arroyo Grande Planet Fitness on Dec. 29, Stacy Combs said.
“He wasn’t even in here in the county when some of this supposed stuff happened,” she said.
In the days after she was served the papers, Stacy Combs spoke with her son, Frederick Law Firm and the Arroyo Grande Police Department to try to remedy the situation.
The police had not yet specifically publically identified the suspect as the 40-year-old Kyle L. Combs.
“They don’t know how that law firm got my son’s name,” Stacy Combs said.
The law firm, on the other hand, was “flippant” about correcting the mistake, she said.
“We had to sit and wait, and we kept asking them, like, ‘What, do we have to hire an attorney? Like, what in the heck? Why is this not being taken care of?’” she said. “It was not a high pressure thing for them to do. They didn’t really feel rushed to do it, is how I interpreted it.”
She said her son called the law firm and spoke to a woman who was rude to him and laughed when he informed her of the mistake, claiming they already knew and were taking care of it.
The law firm filed an amended complaint with the correct Kyle L. Combs named on June 18 - two days after the police correctly identified the suspect - according to court records.
Lead attorney William Frederick declined to comment.
“Our firm has a general policy of not making public comments on pending litigation,” he responded to Tribune questions sent by email.
The Tribune was unable to reach Kyle Hunter Combs for comment.
Kyle L. Combs is expected to appear in court on Thursday for his criminal arraignment.
