A Wisconsin teacher was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to one count of attempting to produce child pornography, reports NBC News. David Krutchen, 39, hid cameras in air fresheners on a field trip. He was discovered when when a girl attempted to spray one of the fresheners only for the contraption to fall open. More suspicious air fresheners were seen in photos taken by the teens. Krutchen claims his voyeurism was not about getting footage of the youngsters naked, but admitted that was the outcome.
In an eight-page handwritten letter filed earlier this week in U.S. District Court, Kruchten wrote that he started spying on family "to deal with stress and fulfill a need for adrenaline" and to find out what they said about him when he wasn't around, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. That led to planting hidden cameras to capture pets, family, friends, babysitters and even his parents and grandparents, before he began spying on his students, Kruchten wrote in the letter to U.S. District Judge James Peterson.
Not mentioned in the sentencing coverage: claims that the school district made investigating what he did more difficult than it should have been.
A Madison teacher charged with trying to create child pornography was allowed to travel home from an out-of-state trip with students who found hidden cameras in their hotel bathrooms and the victims' parents haven't been told why. Madison School District officials won't say whether they knew about the discovery of the cameras before David Kruchten, the accused teacher, and the students boarded a bus to travel back to Madison from Minneapolis for a Dec. 6-8 business club trip.
