A disgraced Tennessee middle school teacher whimpered after being slapped with a four-year prison sentence for placing a camera in a girls’ locker room and filming up one student’s skirt.
Christopher Schroll, 33, a former eighth-grade science teacher and soccer coach at Cleveland Middle School in Cleveland, Tenn., pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated unlawful photography of a minor in a Bradley County courtroom on Monday, according to WTVC.
Schroll was arrested in March 2022 after students complained that they found a camera inside the locker room.
The creep told Cleveland police detectives that he purchased a DivineEagle Spy Camera off Amazon and placed it in the girls’ locker room after claiming he received “complaints” about students being “bullied and harassed,” News Channel 9 previously reported.
He told investigators he would take home the footage daily and store it on his personal computer to “review.”
School administrators, however, say they never received complaints about bullying and that Schroll never informed them of any incidents.
His covert recording of students took place over two days, with 30 female juveniles being captured on camera, including some who were changing, according to investigators.
Police were forced to comb through around 4 million images on an SD card linked to the secret recording device, the outlet reported.
Detectives also say they found a deleted video on one of his devices that filmed up the skirt of a student.
Upon his arrest, parents of Cleveland Middle School students were immediately notified of the teacher’s then-alleged disturbing misconduct.
Before his sentencing on Monday, Schroll was forced to listen to several families of the young victims testify how his disgusting actions affected their lives.
“She didn’t have words for what happened in school that day because she didn’t know people could do bad things,” one choked-up unidentified parent told the court. “She asked me, ‘Why, Momma? I trusted him!’”
“I’m asking you to give justice to my daughter and all the other daughters in this case because they have not seen that yet for these girls — and for you to understand the impact it has had on our children and how it has changed their lives in how they handle dealing with other teachers, how it affects them in school, and how it affects their personal lives,” another mother said.
Sex offender counselor Dr. Michael Adler testified in Schroll’s defense during his trial that the disgraced educator should receive treatment and not jail time, according to WTVC.
Still, parents argued that since his arrest, he’s been seen around the girl’s soccer practice and that his presence in the community is unsettling.
Schroll also spoke at Monday’s sentencing hearing, with the teary-eyed creep apologizing to the victims and their families.
“To the parents and your children, I’m deeply sorry. I know you placed a lot of trust in me and I broke that, and all I can ever say is I’m sorry,” he said, facing the parents in the courtroom.
Schroll will also be forced to register as a sex offender.
