Posted on 03/11/2006 9:25:48 PM PST by ChessMan
Teacher faces trial in secret tapings By Malaika Fraley, STAFF WRITER
REDWOOD CITY — Investigators found images of 3-year-olds engaged in sex acts with adults on former Central Middle School teacher Neal Sato's computer, a San Carlos police detective said.
The detective's graphic testimony at the former middle
school P.E. teacher's preliminary hearing Friday caused the mother of one of 11 girls Sato is accused of covertly videotaping while they undressed to gasp in horror.
Detective Marti Overton was the only witness at the hearing where Judge John Runde ruled there is enough evidence to bring Sato, 34, to trial on 15 felony counts of lewd acts with a child and one misdemeanor count of possession of child pornography.
Overton said police confiscated two video cameras and two computers from Sato's San Bruno home after a 13-year-old girl reported in November that she discovered a video camera recording her changing into a sports uniform.
Overton said a sweep of the computers netted 13 images of child pornography and more than 100 images of undressed girls in Sato's school office. Overton was able to identify 11 girls, all Central students, by using a yearbook. The files, she said, were saved under each girl's name. None of them, except the young whistle-blower who found the video camera, knew they had been taped.
The victims told police that Sato would ask them to try on volleyball and basketball uniforms in his office, even if they didn't play for the team, because he was pondering what style to order. When the girls would challenge him and say they'd prefer to change in the girl's locker room, Sato told them it was locked and he couldn't find the key.
One girl said Sato promised her an A in his class if she tried on uniforms for him during the summer school break. In cases where the girls tried the uniform over their clothes, Sato ordered them back into the office to do it again.
Four girls reported that after they modeled a uniform Sato claimed he needed to check the size of the garment and pulled their waistbands so far out it made them uncomfortable, Overton said.
About a dozen spectators, representing two families, attended the hearing along with Sato's parents and sister.
Sato, free on $600,000 bail, was ordered to return for Superior Court arraignment on May 21.
Investigators have said they have no knowledge of any additional incidents involving minors at other schools Sato worked at in his career.
I don't see it as too extreme- just way too quick and painless, IMHO.
I've heard Utah has a problem with molestation just as other states.
The article is poorly written. Apparently this teacher had some extreme child pornography on a computer. As best I can make out from the article, he also filmed older kids getting undressed. The article makes it sound like he was having sex with three year olds.
I honestly can't imagine being so nice.
That is exactly why I said what I said. They may have WORSE problems than the rest of the country.
3 year old!!!A THREE YEAR OLD! What the ...what!
Without "cheating" by re-reading the article, I remember it saying that the authorities found pictures of an adult or adults in some type of sexual activity with 3 yr olds on one or more of this dudes computers, and the article was unspecific as to whether or not it was him in the pictures. The article does ABSOLUTELY leave it open that it might have been himself in the child-sex photos. Are you saying it was not him?
What? Extreme?
You've got to be kidding me.
WTF??????
How much farther can we continue down this path?
Free on bail??
Such people as this are more of a threat to us than saddam IMHO (not saying both are not a threat of course).
What have we become as a society that we allow such scum to live??
I'm not sure this type of behavior is any more common these days, just more out in the open. Voyeurism is an OLD word.
In earlier days, public knowledge of this would bring shame to the girls & their families, & the teacher would most likely flee for their lives. Things like this were usually handled quietly, but firmly - the teacher was gone real fast.
Today, with unions, contracts, tenure, PC, zero tolerance, lawyers, etc., it is virtually impossible to keep anything from going public. Supposedly, we have a right to know.
The story is dastardly, but that sentence is crap. It leaves confusion about who "gasped in horror."
Don't journalists need to have some kind of training before they're set loose on the world?
Suspended with pay, I bet.
California will let him out in 5 or 10 or 20 years and he will do it again.
I doubt he will get that much, these Judges are sick, he will get a slap on the hand and probation. Look what that guy in Mass got that admitted he molested a young girl.
http://www.abclocal.go.com /kgo/story?section=local&id=3779809
I'm sure the California Teachers Association Stands behind him. Is he still on the job?
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