Crime & Safety

UPDATE: Teacher Resigns Following Arrest For Secretly Videotaping Teen

The girl told Alpharetta police that she noticed the cell phone on her bookshelf while she was getting dressed.

Editor’s note: The information contained within this report is reflective of the investigation at the date and time of its printing.

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Alpharetta, GA -- An Alpharetta man and former middle school teacher has been charged with secretly videotaping a teenager inside his home.

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Alpharetta police have charged John Link Walsh, 43, with one count of unlawful eavesdropping or surveillance, the agency said on Tuesday.

Walsh was previously employed with the Fulton County School System, and has subsequently resigned from the post he held at Webb Bridge Middle School, said Susan Hale, spokesperson with the system.

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“Our school system is fully cooperating with the Alpharetta Police Department in their investigation of this off-campus incident,” she added.

According to an incident report released by the Alpharetta Department of Public Safety, an officer was dispatched to a home before noon Saturday, Feb. 20 where they met with the girl.

The teenager said she woke up from sleeping on the sofa and went to take a shower.

When she went to her bedroom to get dressed, “she noticed a camera that was hidden on a bookshelf in her room,” according to the report.

The victim told police she observed the camera, which she identified as a black Apple iPhone 6 allegedly belonging to Walsh, a former teacher with the Fulton County School System.

According to the report, she grabbed the phone and the screen showed a message indicating the video recording was complete.

The victim told police she replayed the video, which allegedly showed Walsh placing the phone on the shelf, covering it up and subsequently her getting dressed.

After she saw ”herself on video, she freaked out and deleted the videos,” the reports states. The teen took the phone with her to a friend’s home and called police.

The victim told detectives she does not share the bedroom with anyone else, and she was able to identify the phone as belonging to Walsh because of the background image on the home screen.

She also said she was the only person at home with Walsh at the time of the discovery “so nobody else could have placed the phone on the shelf,” the report states.

Alpharetta police were eventually able to track down Walsh, who refused to give a statement to police, the report states. He was booked into the Fulton County Jail on Sunday, Feb. 21 with a $5,000 bond.

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