Caretaker accused of 17 years of voyeurism
A high school caretaker in the US has been accused of secretly making hundreds of videotapes of a girls’ changing room and a women teacher’s lavatory over nearly 20 years.
Michael Conte, 46, was charged with unlawful surveillance, criminal possession of a weapon and endangering the welfare of a child.
Investigators found peepholes at Brooklyn Technical High School and Westinghouse High School, and video recordings of naked children in his home, police in New York said.
The New York Post reported that thousands of unsuspecting victims would have been filmed over a 17-year period.
Conte was arrested by Suffolk County police on Tuesday for allegedly illegally videotaping a female acquaintance, police said, and confessed under questioning to carrying out further surveillance at Westinghouse.
Detectives later found a hole in a toilet wall at the school.
They searched Conte’s Staten Island home, and said they found hundreds of video cassettes, CDs and computer floppy disks with apparently secretly recorded images of naked children and adults.
They said they also found surveillance and video equipment and a shotgun.
The city’s Department of Education said Conte had been relieved of his duties.
