A West Virginia school principal accused of planting recording devices in several girls’ locker rooms allegedly watched students undress live through a video feed, according to a newly filed lawsuit against the administrator.
Eric James, 53, now faces lawsuits from 11 students across multiple schools, with allegations that include installing four hidden cameras in locker rooms and changing areas while he served as principal of Brooke High School in Wellsburg, located in West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle, according to a criminal complaint reviewed by the Daily Mail.
The outlet reported that three students filed separate civil complaints after a class-action lawsuit was brought last week on behalf of eight students.
In one complaint, a soccer player from a previous school alleged that James “would wait for her at the locker room door, let her in, and then disappear.”
The student said she believed James was “disappearing to go view the live camera footage” while she was changing inside the locker room.
Another student, who attended John Marshall High School in Glen Dale, West Virginia, said she was required to use the changing rooms at Brooke High School during an away game.
“Upon information and belief, Eric James would view the live camera footage while [the girl] was in the locker room,” the complaint alleges.
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A third student, a 17-year-old at Brooke High School, said in her lawsuit that she “reasonably believes” she was recorded by one of James’s alleged hidden cameras while changing at the school.
Students “made reports or complaints concerning James’s conduct” while he taught as a gym teacher at another school, Cameron High in Cameron, WV, between 2000 and 2018, one of the complaints alleges.
All three civil lawsuits and the class action lawsuit ask for monetary damages to be determined by a jury.
“The resulting invasion of the bodily privacy of Plaintiffs and other students was not momentary. Every day that the devices remained concealed and operational exposed children to additional secret observation and recording,” the class action lawsuit states.
James — who was suspended last Wednesday — remains in custody after he was booked into the Northern Regional Jail on a $100,000 bond ahead of his scheduled court appearance next Wednesday.
He has yet to enter a plea as the criminal investigation continues, court records state.
An attorney for James has not been publicly identified.
The Brooke County Board of Education, also named in the various lawsuits, did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
