A Chicago elementary music teacher and former track star at Normal West High School and graduate of Illinois Wesleyan was arrested in connection with videotaping staff members and at least one student using a bathroom at the school where he taught, the Chicago Tribune reports.
Elliott Nott, 41, was charged with seven felony counts of unauthorized videotaping and one felony count of child pornography two weeks after the camera was discovered in the third-floor bathroom of the Ogden International School at 24 West Walton Street.
He had been working at the school since 2009 but was fired after the camera was discovered on September 7, attached with putty to the underside of a sink down the hall from Mr Nott’s classroom.
It’s nothing new to the Chicago area for teachers to install hidden cameras in bathrooms at their schools. In 2002, a Libertyville man, Kreg M Peterson, was charged with two misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct for placing a video camera in a women’s faculty bathroom at Lines Elementary School: one count for the woman on whom he was playing a practical joke, and the other count for the woman who discovered the camera and found it not at all funny.
There was no evidence, though, that the camera in Libertyville 14 years ago transmitted or stored any images; in Mr Nott’s case, police searched his residence and took away computers, cellphones, and other digital media, WLS-TV (ABC affiliate) confirmed.
“The images and videos include those of multiple members of school staff using the restroom on multiple occasions as well as one child who had special permission to use the bathroom,” the station quoted Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Melissa Howlett as saying.
