As reported by Click Orlando and WKMG 6 News, a teacher whose lost iPad was found with explicit images of young girls undressing, has been charged with two felony counts of video voyeurism.
The defendant, J.W., 33, taught 8th grade at St. Peter Catholic School in DeLand at the time of his arrest on April 26.
According to police, J.W. had allegedly recorded images of students in a DeLand Walmart changing their clothes. It is also alleged that he hid cameras in his classroom.
On April 1 J.W. called police to report that he had lost his iPad. Police used an iPhone application to locate the iPad, which led them a woman that had found it abandoned in a Walmart shopping cart and brought it home.
When the woman tried to use the iPad to figure out who it belonged to, she discovered "nude photos of children" that deputies determined were "juvenile females between ages 11-15".
S.A., the daughter of the woman that found the iPad, told reporters that in unlocking the iPad she found the nude photos. S.A. said, "There was like seven pictures of one girl in her room in her bedroom, fully naked, exposing herself…"
DeLand police have yet to determine the identity of the girls in the images. Police Sgt. C.E. said, "It was actually good fortune, if you will, that this thing was found and it was discovered the way it was and brought to our attention. We're going to put a stop to it."
J.W. told police that students that sometimes used a teacher's storage closet to dress in were unknowingly filmed by two to three pen cameras he had hidden there. Police found images of two students, aged 12 and 13, that had changed their clothes in the storage closet.
Then, according to police, J.W. got rid of the pen cameras in his apartment building's dumpster, after police had questioned him.
During the investigation police discovered that J.W. had sent inappropriate text messages to a 16-year-old student. They also learned that while working in a Walmart in Orlando, C.W. had placed a surveillance camera in a room female employees changed clothes in.
C.W. told officers that he was "very sorry for what he had done and he does not want to become a pedophile."
C.W. is being held without bond for the two voyeurism charges, defendant over 24 and victim under 16. He is also charged for tampering with evidence – C.W. had tried to delete the images from his iPad by using a connection from his iPhone.
When police began to investigate C.W., the school put him on administration leave, and on April 13 they terminated him. Carol Brintati of the Diocese of Orlando said, "All Diocesan background check procedures were followed in the hiring of Mr. (C.W.). The safety and well being of our students are very important to us…"
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