Olympic Peninsula high school principal charged with voyeurism

PORT TOWNSEND, Wash. – A high school principal accused of surreptitiously taking at least 100 video images of a nude and partly clad 15-year-old girl at his home has been charged with voyeurism.

Chimacum High School Principal Rex E. Whipple, 45, appeared in Jefferson County Superior Court via a video hookup from the county jail in Port Hadlock to face the charge Tuesday, a day after being his arrest.

Judge Craddock Verser, who said Whipple could face up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine if convicted, set bail at $25,000 and scheduled arraignment for March 24.

Whipple has been placed on administrative leave and Chimacum's middle school principal, Whitney Meissner, has been appointed interim high school principal.

Whipple came under scrutiny after his wife Suzanne told authorities she learned of the videos from her daughter-in-law, Shaun Whipple, who encountered them on the principal's laptop computer while he was visiting her in Arizona, where he worked before getting the job in Chimacum five years ago, investigators wrote in documents filed in court.

The images were made "for the purpose of arousing and gratifying the sexual desire," Prosecutor Juelanne B. Dalzell wrote.

In a statement of probable cause, sheriff's Detective Joseph Nole wrote that Whipple's daughter told him "she was positive of the identification of the person in the videos because she knows her very well."

Students at the high school said they were caught off-guard.

"What I heard about him didn't make sense to me. He was a great principal," said Austin Tipton, 17, a junior.

"I was stunned," said Zoya Bland, a freshman who learned of the case from a television news report. "All I could think was, 'Is that really my school?"'