A Tennessee middle school teacher whined after receiving a four-year prison sentence for installing a camera in a girls' locker room and taking pictures up students' skirts.
Christopher Schroll, 33, a former eighth-grade science teacher and football coach at Cleveland Middle School, pleaded guilty Monday in a Bradley County courtroom to attempted illegal photography of a minor. WTC.
Schroll was arrested in March 2022 after students complained they had found cameras in the locker rooms.
The pervert told Cleveland police detectives he bought a Divine Eagle spy camera on Amazon and installed it in the girls' locker room after claiming he had received “complaints” that students were “being bullied and harassed,” News Channel 9 previously reported. Reported.
He told investigators that he would take the footage home each day and save it on his computer to “review.”
But school administrators said they had not received any complaints about bullying and that Schroll had never reported any incidents to them.
Investigators said the suspect secretly recorded the students over a two-day period, with 30 female students caught on camera, some of them while they were changing clothes.
Police were forced to sift through around four million images stored on SD cards linked to a secret recording device, the media reported.
Detectives also say they found a since-deleted video on one of the suspect's devices that appeared to show him up a student's skirt.
Upon his arrest, parents of Cleveland Middle School students were immediately informed that the teacher at the time was suspected of disturbing misconduct.
Before Monday's sentencing, Schroll heard from several family members of his young victims who gave evidence about how his heinous acts have affected their lives.
“My mother had no words for what happened at school that day because she didn't know people could do bad things,” one parent, who did not want to be identified, told the court, her voice breaking. “She asked me, 'Why? Mom? I trusted him.'”
“I ask that justice be given to my daughter and the other girls in this case because they still haven't had justice given to these girls and I want them to understand how this has affected our children, how it has changed their lives, how they interact with other teachers, how it has affected them at school, how it has affected their personal lives,” another mother said.
Sexual assault counselor Dr. Michael Adler testified for Schroll's defense at the trial, saying the disgraced educator should receive treatment instead of prison. WTC.
Yet his parents argued that since his arrest he has been seen around the girls' soccer training ground and that his presence in the community has caused anxiety.
Schroll also testified at Monday's sentencing hearing, where he tearfully apologized to the victim and her family.
“I sincerely apologize to the parents and to their children. I know you placed a lot of trust in me and I betrayed that. All I can say is I'm sorry,” he said, addressing the parents in court.
Schroll will also be forced to register as a sex offender.
