Okay, our commenter hashashin was more than right: The scary thing about the Staten Island man who was arrested for secretly installing a camera in the Long Island bathroom of a friend he was doing some bathroom renovation work for was not that he secretly installed the camera - it's that he's a Department of Education employee. Because now he's been arrested for installing spy cameras at high schools in Brooklyn. Oh, yes: Michael Conte, a janitor's assistant/part-time machinist at Westinghouse and Brooklyn Tech High Schools, installed cameras in a women's faculty bathroom and a girl's locker room. Ew ew ew ew ew! Suffolk County police let the NYPD know they were investigating Conte, and then NYPD found "800 cassettes and DVD's; pinhole cameras, high-powered lenses and other surveillance equipment; and a shotgun and ammunition" in his Staten Island home. Sweet Jesus. Then the police searched the high schools, finding the secret peepholes. And the Long Island woman alerted police when she found the hard drive that was taking pictures of her in the bathroom! Gothamist wonders if lawsuits from the teachers' union and parents of students will be far behind.
Conte is held on $75,000 bail and was suspended from his job (but the Department of Education is looking to fire him).
