OLYMPIA – Prosecutors on Friday charged a Canadian teacher with videotaping students in the shower during a high school wrestling tournament in Tumwater.
Chi Yung Luu, 29, of Delta, B.C., is charged with 15 counts of voyeurism, a felony sex offense that could carry a maximum overall sentence of five years if prosecutors seek enhanced punishment.
Luu remained jailed in Thurston County on $750,000 bail. He was arrested Wednesday after a student said he noticed Luu in the locker room with a video camera concealed in a towel.
Luu, a high school drama teacher, was suspended Friday by the school board in Delta. Chairwoman Heather King said the charges surprised the district.
“We have had absolutely no negative comments regarding this teacher,” she said.
King said Luu was hired a year and a half ago “with glowing references,” and a background check turned up no criminal record.
The student who alerted authorities Wednesday also told police he recognized the man from another tournament a year ago, where the man was also videotaping male wrestlers in the shower, court documents said.
Detectives said they seized two video cameras and a handful of tapes, which showed athletes at other sporting events filmed from the stands, not inside locker rooms or showers, Tumwater police Lt. Bruce Brenna said.
“This doesn’t look like something that was confined strictly to us,” he said.
Jodilyn Erikson-Muldrew, a deputy Thurston County prosecutor, declined to comment on the ongoing investigation but said Tumwater police were cooperating with federal and Canadian authorities.
In British Columbia, police on Friday seized video tapes, video-recording equipment and computers from Luu’s apartment.
Members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s integrated child-exploitation team raided his rented basement suite in Delta at the request of Tumwater police.
Delta police and RCMP declined to provide details of what they found, but Brenna said there were “a lot of video tapes and more than one computer,” as well as recording equipment.
“The time-consuming part now is going through all that,” Brenna said.
U.S. immigration authorities also have placed a detainer on Luu in case he makes bail before a scheduled Jan. 11 arraignment, Erikson-Muldrew said.
“If he were to make bail in our case, he would go into federal custody,” she said.
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