School Teacher Gets 15 years Jail For Secretly Filming Students In Changing Room

A Florida fashion school teacher has admitted to illegally filming his students and a female co-worker in the institution's changing room.

Mark William Ackett, 52, was sentenced to 15 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to filming 124 students and a female co-worker in the school changing room.

“There’s so much suffering in this case by so many different people due to the actions of the defendant. There’s very little I can say today to make any of that better,” Hillsborough County Judge Laura Ward said at his sentencing on Monday.

Ackett pleaded guilty to 324 counts of video voyeurism, which equals to roughly 366 years state prison sentence, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

Defense Attorneys in a sentencing memorandum filed ahead of the hearing asked for a maximum of three years of sentence and time on probation. In the memorandum, it was asserted that Ackett is diagnosed to have “voyeuristic disorder” and would continue to seek treatment for it.

Ackett openly sobbed as the victims recounted the horrors to the judge.

Since 2017, Ackett was the girls' track coach and fashion design teacher at Bloomingdale high school. Prosecutors said that he collected and edited hundreds of nude and partially nude videos of students changing in the dressing room of his fashion design class.

Bloomingdale teacher Eva Applebee shared in the court that it felt like being punched in the stomach when she heard that the classroom they shared had cameras reported ABC News. “Mark groomed and chose his victims - gaining their trust and then taking advantage of them,” Applebee said.

Victims of the crime believe that any sentence less than life in prison will be a ‘free pass’ for Ackett. Some of the students that he filmed now suffer from depression and anxiety.

Ackett's actions came to light when a 17-year-old fashion student changing clothes in the dressing room of the fashion design class found a box on a shelf, which had a cell phone. She found one more cell phone in the room and both of them appeared to be recording. Soon, the incident to the school principal.

Cognitive-behavioral therapist Ruben Drake, who assessed Ackett, told the court that Ackett is capable of recovering from his compulsions. He said that Ackett is not a pedophile and his fantasies were triggered by the thrill of secretly watching the students.

“It’s a mental disorder and it can be treated,” Drake said. “People can be benevolent in one area and then have a disorder in another. He’s not a bad person, but he certainly had some bad behaviors.”

“He is an excellent actor, having fooled us and his very own family for years,” Applebee said. “Acting like he cared, like he respected us. But instead we found out it was a big act.”