A school principal accused of setting up recording devices in multiple girls’ locker rooms allegedly watched his victims undress in real time on a livestream, a new lawsuit filed against the West Virginia administrator has claimed.
Eric James, 53, is being sued by a total of 11 students at multiple schools over various allegations, including that he installed four secret cameras in locker rooms and changing areas while he was principal at Brooke High School in Wellsburg, in the state’s Northern Panhandle, according to a criminal complaint seen by the Daily Mail.
After a class action lawsuit was filed last week on behalf of eight students, three students filed civil complaints, the outlet reported.
One student on the soccer team at a previous school claimed James “would wait for her at the locker room door, let her in, and then disappear,” the complaint stated.
The student believed James was “disappearing to go view the live camera footage” while she changed inside.
Another student at John Marshall High School in Glen Dale, WV, said she had to use the changing rooms at Brooke High School during an away day.
“Upon information and belief, Eric James would view the live camera footage while [the girl] was in the locker room,” the complaint states.
Yet another Brooke High student, 17, said she “reasonably believes” she was caught on one of James’s alleged secret cameras while changing at the school, according to her lawsuit.
Students “made reports or complaints concerning James’s conduct” while he taught as a gym teacher at another school, Cameron High in Cameron, WV, between 2000 and 2018, one of the complaints alleges.
All three civil lawsuits and the class action lawsuit ask for monetary damages to be determined by a jury.
“The resulting invasion of the bodily privacy of Plaintiffs and other students was not momentary. Every day that the devices remained concealed and operational exposed children to additional secret observation and recording,” the class action lawsuit states.
James — who was suspended last Wednesday — remains in custody after he was booked into the Northern Regional Jail on a $100,000 bond ahead of his scheduled court appearance next Wednesday.
He has yet to enter a plea as the criminal investigation continues, court records state.
An attorney for James has not been publicly identified.
The Brooke County Board of Education, also named in the various lawsuits, did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
