Federal prosecutors, on Friday, have sentenced a former Wisconsin high school teacher to twelve years in prison after he was found guilty of secretly videotaping undressed students during field trips.
The 39-year-old former teacher, David Kruchten of Cottage Grove, Wisconsin, earlier pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to produce child pornography.
According to prosecutors, Kruchten allegedly took advantage of his position as a business teacher at Madison East High School to secretly videotape students during field trips in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
In 2019, Kruchten accompanied East High’s business club students on overnight trips to Wisconsin Dells and Lake Geneva as well as Minneapolis. During the Minneapolis trip, Kruchten planted hidden cameras in air fresheners in the students’ hotel rooms.
According to court documents, the students eventually discovered the hidden cameras. Similar air freshener cans were also discovered in pictures taken by students during the Wisconsin trips, prosecutors said.
Kruchten resigned from his teaching job last year after he was charged with multiple counts of attempting to produce child pornography.
According to court documents, Kruchten wrote that he began spying on members of his family to find out what they usually said about him when he wasn’t around. Kruchten said the reason behind his decision to spy on people was “to deal with stress and fulfill a need for adrenaline,” the Wisconsin State Journal reported.
From family members, Kruchten eventually graduated to planting hidden cameras to capture pets, friends, babysitters, and even his parents and grandparents; before he began spying on his students, he confessed in the letter to U.S. District Judge James Peterson.
“That was not my goal when I went into teaching and it was not my goal when I started on this course of behavior,” Kruchten wrote. “My goal was not a collection of child pornography. My interest in these voyeuristic videos was not to capture students engaged in sex acts, my interest was the same (as) it was with my grandparents, and my pets and my wife — to see what people do when I’m not there.”
However, Kruchten said, it would be a lie to say there were “zero sexual components in the videos.”
