Teacher who spied in school bathroom sentenced

Guilty plea after setting up video camera in staff facility.

By: David Campbell
   Henry Vanegas-Salcedo, the former Riverside Elementary School teacher who was fired a year ago after he secretly videotaped female colleagues in a staff bathroom, was sentenced in Superior Court last week to five years’ probation and was banned from teaching.
   Mr. Vanegas-Salcedo, 33, of Sayreville had pleaded guilty to maintaining a nuisance. On March 28, he was ordered by Superior Court Judge Maria Sypek to surrender his teaching credentials in New Jersey, said Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor Robin Scheiner.
   "He has been banned from teaching, period," Ms. Scheiner said. "I’m happy with the sentencing because of the crime I was able to charge him with. I am not happy with the crime."
   The assistant prosecutor said there are no statutes on the books in New Jersey that protect adults from actions like Mr. Vanegas-Salcedo’s, but said teachers are working to change that.
   "When this case came in, I was really finding it difficult to find something to charge him with," Ms. Scheiner said. "New Jersey really doesn’t have a law that protects adults from this sort of activity."
   The former Spanish teacher, a married father of three children, was arrested in April 2002 after a female staff member reportedly discovered his hidden camera in a bathroom used by women. The recording equipment was concealed beneath a tablecloth. The staffer noticed the camera because there was a hole in the tablecloth, district officials have said.
   Police have said the suspect could be seen on videotape adjusting the camera settings.
   Shortly after his arrest, Mr. Vanegas-Salcedo was fired with a unanimous vote by the Princeton Regional Board of Education for conduct unbecoming a teacher. If he had been convicted by a jury, he could have been sentenced to a year in prison and fined $10,000.
   Superintendent Claire Sheff Kohn said the prosecutor and judge handled it as the serious case that it is, and did what they could within the legal parameters they had to work with.
   "We’re grateful that he won’t be in any school anywhere in New Jersey ever again," Dr. Kohn said. "I think they took this seriously and dealt with it as stringently as they could."
   The district offered to cover the expense of counseling for affected teachers that isn’t covered under insurance, which some teachers took advantage of, the superintendent said.
   "We wanted to help the teachers who were victimized by this man to be able to deal with it as best they could under the circumstances," Dr. Kohn said.
   School board President Charlotte Bialek said, "I think what he did was appalling and it’s clear he needs help.
   "I’m glad he won’t be teaching any students any more," Ms. Bialek continued. "It’s inappropriate for him to work where there are women and students."
   Princeton attorney Robert Wills, who represented teachers victimized by Mr. Vanegas-Salcedo, confirmed that his clients will seek to change the laws to address crimes like the one perpetrated on them.
   "It became apparent when the prosecutor’s office became involved that it was difficult to find a precise statute that fit the crime," Mr. Wills said. "The closest thing they could come up with was maintaining a criminal nuisance, which is kind of an old-fashioned and roundabout way to describe what was going on."
   Mr. Wills said the prosecutor’s office did an excellent job of prosecuting the case, adding, "Who would expect that a teacher, a professional, a colleague, is going around to stick a camera under a table and photographing female colleagues going to the bathroom? It’s absurd."