Report: Marion teacher allegedly recorded explicit self-videos at school
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FAIRMONT - A series of allegedly explicit videos sent over the summer led to the child pornography arrest of Marion County teacher Michael Joseph Carpenter, court documents show.
Carpenter, 43, the choir director of East Fairmont High School, was taken into custody at the school Tuesday morning by West Virginia State Police.
According to the complaint, he was alleged to have sent "multiple" videos depicting children and adults in sexually explicit positions through his account with the Kik messaging application on July 25.
Several videos from that day were reported to law enforcement, the complaint read.
He was arrested and booked into the North Central Regional Jail on the pornography charge, which is a felony.
The music educator remained lodged Thursday in the Doddridge County jail. Bail has been set at $500,000.
Meanwhile, another 16 videos sent previously through the account and retrieved through search warrant show more of the same - with Carpenter allegedly depicting self-pleasure in the music classroom at East High in some of them.
Another shows an adult male and "apparent prepubescent female" in a perceived sexual act, according to the court document.
Carpenter admitted ownership of the account during an interview with authorities and said - according to the complaint - that he was aware children were in some of the videos.
He "could not confirm," though, he continued in that interview, if said participants "were engaged in sexually explicit conduct" as part of the recordings.
The website of East Fairmont High School still listed Carpenter, who is presumed innocent until proven guilty, as a faculty member Thursday afternoon.
Other public school educators in the state have been charged with alleged deviant behavior this year.
In August, David Elliott Pritt, a teacher at Oak Hill High School in Fayette County who had also been elected to the state House of Delegates, was indicted by a grand jury on child sexual exploitation - following an alleged intimate relationship with a teenaged girl.
Eric James, principal of Brooke High School in Wellsburg, Brooke County, was arrested and charged with hiding video recording devices in the girls' physical education locker room and another changing area for the girls' dance team.