ARLINGTON — A former Arlington Christian School teacher who admitted to shooting hundreds of videos of female staff members and students without their permission will not see any more time in jail.
Stephen Clark Brown, 64, pleaded guilty in June to first-degree voyeurism. On Wednesday, Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Paul Thompson handed down an 18-day sentence, but Brown already served that time when he was first booked for the crime.
Instead of being behind bars, Brown will spend a year on probation. He also will have to register as a sex offender.
Arlington Christian School operates preschool, elementary, middle and high school classes. In addition to being the lead high school teacher, Brown was a coach and pastor there.
A student was walking on the school’s campus in early 2018 when he discovered a thumb drive sitting in the grass, according to the charges filed in July 2020. He put it in his backpack.
While cleaning his bedroom with his friend months later, in October 2018, they found the USB drive again and decided to plug it into a computer.
On it were hundreds of images and videos of female students and faculty of the Christian school, often focused on their breasts, buttocks and crotches.
“What they found was described by all who would see it as inappropriate and disturbing,” Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Wallace Langbehn wrote in the charges.
Brown was arrested five days later.
During the investigation, detectives with the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office seized phones, CDs and laptops from Brown’s house.
Most of the videos were taken on school grounds in classrooms, hallways and other areas. They appeared to go back years. The earliest folder detectives found was from 2010, they reported.
A voice heard on some of the videos was consistent with Brown’s, prosecutors wrote.
In one series from 2017, Brown appears to be trying to get a view up a 17-year-old girl’s skirt, according to court documents. With each video, the suspect moves closer. The angle of the camera gets lower and lower.
It didn’t appear the girl had any knowledge she was being recorded, a detective wrote.
Other videos were taken underneath a picnic table as Brown sat across from two females wearing shorts.
Another from 2017 captures a glimpse of a girl’s underwear as she gets up off the floor.
In addition to Brown’s voice in the videos, he had also taken selfies. A Windows profile associated with one of the devices authorities seized had the name “Steve Brown,” and some folders were titled “Pastor Steve.”
Brown wrote earlier this month to Judge Thompson that he was “heartbroken” over what he did.
“It is a feeling so deep I struggle with the words,” Brown wrote. “Every day, every night, and in my sleep I feel this brokenness inside for the hurt I have caused. It has been almost three years now since my arrest, but this trauma which I have caused is with me until I die. The journey that I have been on has been dark, frightening, and inexplicably sad.”
Calling his behavior “self-centered, secretive, and shameful,” he wrote he wanted to apologize to everyone he hurt.
Jake Goldstein-Street: 425-339-3439; jake.goldstein-street@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @GoldsteinStreet.
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