A high school teacher in Irvine, California, was recently arrested after it was discovered that he had placed hidden recording devices in a bathroom near the school’s pool.
KTLA 5 reported that a contracted maintenance worker at Beckman High School found recording devices that were secretly placed in an all-gender bathroom near the school’s swimming pool.
The Irvine Police Department later revealed, after the maintenance worker turned over the devices to school administrators, that 37-year-old Siu Kong Sit recorded several victims.
“The contractor turned the items over to administrative staff who called IPD. Officers determined the devices had recorded several victims while in the restroom,” an Irvine Police press release states.
Sit was arrested and booked into Orange County Jail, facing several charges, including charges related to child pornography. He is charged with possession of (or manufacturing) child pornography, burglary and two misdemeanor charges.
Back in 2020, Sit was referenced on the school’s Twitter page, linking to a video in which he congratulates a student on winning the “Engineering Student of the Year” award.
Irvine police are still attempting to locate some of the victims who appeared on the recordings from the devices.
The year 2023 has seen a swath of arrests of individuals who were caught procuring or creating child pornography. One of the most notable was a 72-year-old Florida man who was recently arrested for possessing 200,000 images of child pornography, which weighed in at over a ton.
In early February 2023, a man from Wisconsin was sentenced to 25 years in prison for producing child pornography, and sending the images and videos to others through a messaging app.
Several weeks prior, in late January, an Iowa man also received 25 years in prison for production of child pornography and transfer of obscene materials to minors, after he was caught preying on underage girls on Snapchat. Just days prior to that, a separate Iowa man was caught despite faking his own death and evading police for six years. That man was sentenced to 20 years in prison for knowingly receiving child pornography.
This comes as the Department of Justice has been using the Project Safe Childhood initiative to track down sex offenders across the country in cooperation with local police departments.
“This initiative was designed to help law enforcement at the federal, state, tribal and local levels form collaborative partnerships to protect the children of this nation,” the DOJ statement reads. “Through these partnerships law enforcement at every level partner together to investigate and prosecute those that exploit children.”
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