The upper deck at Mountain View Vineyard in Monroe County is a common place for customers to sit, sip wine, enjoy views and engage in conversation.

It’s also one of several places where the winery’s owners allegedly placed surveillance cameras that captured customers’ conversations as well as the conversations of employees, according to investigators.

Randall Rice, 59, and Linda Rice, 58, the owners of the winery and a distillery in nearby Jackson Township, were arrested Wednesday by detectives with the Monroe County District Attorney’s office.

They have been accused of illegally using wireless cameras at the brand-new winery building which opened on Walters Road in Hamilton Township last May.

The DA’s office said in a news release on Wednesday that they recovered more than 1,700 video clips, each about 10 seconds long, that were stored on Randall Rice’s cellphone. The clips were all taken around the winery and distillery, and hundreds contained private conversations. Both customers and employees could be heard on the recordings, according to court documents.

In Pennsylvania, it’s illegal for private residents to record conversations without the consent of everyone involved. Detectives said there were no signs placed around the winery that informed customers that they were being recorded, and the employee handbook also didn’t mention audio recording.

Randall Rice’s phone was seized under a search warrant that detectives executed at the winery, the distillery and offices at the couple’s home Wednesday morning. Also during the search, detectives located eight hidden ARLO wireless surveillance cameras, four of which could record audio.

Cameras capable of recording audio were located in areas including the tasting room, barrel room, and outside the barrel room entrance and on the upper deck.

The investigation started in December after detectives learned that Randall and Linda Rice were recording customers and employees at the winery. They interviewed several current and former employees, and learned that two of them were aware that recording was taking place.

Randall Rice was interviewed by the detectives on Wednesday, and admitted to installing the cameras capable of recording audio. He allegedly said that the employees were aware they were being recorded, but didn’t say whether customers knew.

Linda Rice also told detectives on Wednesday that her husband controlled the recordings, but she had viewed some of them. She allegedly said that they installed the cameras to make sure that their employees were not stealing from them, and to have solid evidence if one did.

The Rices were both arraigned Wednesday afternoon on charges of intercepting communications, and possessing devices for intercepting communications, which are both felonies.

They were arraigned and released on $5,000 unsecured bail. A preliminary hearing was tentatively scheduled for 10 a.m. Feb. 2 before Magisterial District Judge Daniel Higgins in Stroud Township.