Ex-teacher charged in voyeurism case

A 47-year-old Woodinville man was charged Wednesday with three counts of voyeurism for secretly videotaping several females, including an 11-year-old girl, while they used the bathroom in his home.

Carlo Calcagni, who resigned last week as a fifth-grade teacher at Moorlands Elementary in Kenmore, was arrested last Thursday after a housesitter and her friends discovered 19 video clips on his computer depicting females taking down their pants to use the toilet, according to charging papers.

The videos were dated between June 15, 2005, and March 3, 2006, the charging papers stated.

The sitter was at the Calcagni home to watch the house, feed the horses and the dog while the family was away on vacation. On Dec. 22, she and her friends found the clips in a computer file marked "dad's school folder," according to charging papers. They then located a camera disguised as a clock radio in the bathroom on the main floor of the house, charging papers stated.

They also found another hidden camera in a second-floor bathroom of Calcagni's house, according to charging papers. The camera was directed at the shower, the papers state.

Calcagni told police he bought a motion-sensor camera from The Sharper Image store and put it in the main-floor bathroom, according to charging papers.

The camera works when a motion beam activates it, transmitting images by a signal to a computer or a video-recording machine.

Calcagni said he thought the images "might be sexually exciting," according to the documents. He said the first image he captured was of an 11-year-old girl going to the bathroom.

He called that footage "a mistake." He said "he wanted to get females that were 18 years old and older," according to charging papers.

He said the videos were "not sexually exciting like he thought they would be," adding that he "forgot to erase the clips off his computer," according to the charging papers.

Calcagni had been a teacher at Moorlands for 17 years with "no complaints," according to a letter sent this week by Bethel Santos, principal at Moorlands, to parents about the case.

"Please know that Moorlands' staff members and I stand prepared and are doing all we know to limit the effects of this sad and unfortunate situation," Santos wrote.

Calcagni was released from jail Friday on $10,000 bail but is due back in court for an arraignment Jan. 10.

Sonia Krishnan: 206-515-5546 or skrishnan@seattletimes.com

Information in this article, originally published January 4, 2007, was corrected January 7, 2007. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the number of counts of voyeurism a Woodinville man was charged with when he allegedly videotaped females in his home bathroom. He was charged with three counts.