Child Porn Charges Dismissed In Richards Peeping Case: Court

OAK LAWN, IL -- Child pornography charges were dropped against a Richards High School employee accused of secretly video-taping a 14-year-old girl in 2015 as she changed in the gym locker room. Raymond Van Sykle, 34, of Joliet, appeared before Cook County Judge Kerry Kennedy for a status hearing on April 18, where is facing felony charges of unauthorized video-taping and four counts of child pornography. Van Syckle worked at the Oak Lawn high school for eight years as the pool equipment manager and an assistant coach for the boys’ volleyball team at the time of his arrest.

On Oct. 30, 2015, prosecutors allege that Van Syckle approached the 14-year-old girl before p.e. class and asked her to leave class early to deliver some contracts for him to the high school athletic director. When it was time for the student to leave to deliver the documents, Van Syckle excused her from class. While changing in the girl's locker room, the student noticed a cell phone camera above some curtains of a window to a storage area directly across from where she was dressing, prosecutors said.

The teen hid in a changing stall and waited for the rest of her classmates to be dismissed the class. She immediately confided to a friend what happened. When they heard Van Syckle calling her name, both students ran to the dean’s office. Van Syckle was later called to the principal’s office, where prosecutors allege that he had deleted the video, however, a thumbnail image of the student’s bare buttocks still existed on Van Sykle’s phone.

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Van Syckle was initially charged with unauthorized video-taping. He was later indicted in four counts of manufacturing and possession of a moving depiction of child pornography. Van Syckle is free on $150,000 bail and is on electronic monitoring. He is also said to have resigned his post at the high school.

Van Syckle’s attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the child pornography charges, arguing that the thumbnail image did not meet the “statutory definition of child pornography.”

“The defendant argues that although the images recovered are of nude buttocks of the victim, nudity without lewdness is not child porn,” the defense motion stated.

Van Syckle’s attorney cited the case of a 61-year-old man convicted of photographing two 13-year-old girls swimming nude in a river. The Illinois Supreme Court reasoned that the photos of the girls weren’t lewd because the photos depicted “incidental nudity,” so the convictions were dismissed. However, the court affirmed the conviction of the 61-year-old man for child sexual abuse, when he appeared in another photo of him standing knee-deep in water nude with a partial erection, with his arms around a topless 13-year-old girl.

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The prosecutor cited another case heard in Illinois Appellate Court, arguing that use of a hidden camera to photograph a minor victim nude in a bathroom is “sexually motivated, lewd, and therefore child pornography.”

Cook County Judge Kerry Kennedy tossed the child pornography charges against Van Syckle, but said the unauthorized video-taping charge remains.

The teen’s parents have since filed a civil lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court, over claims that CHSD ignored past warnings of Van Syckle’s alleged locker room peeping. The lawsuit names the CHSD 218 Board of Education, Dist. 218 Supt. Ty Harting, former Richards principal John Hallberg, the current principal Mike Jacobson, assistant principal of athletics Ken Styler and Van Syckle as defendants.

The complaint contends that another student returning to the girls’ locker room in 2013 told Richards administrators she saw Van Syckle secretly video-recording two female students changing their clothes. The Oak Lawn Police Department confirmed that none of the defendants named in the civil lawsuit have been criminally charged with failing to report suspected “child maltreatment.”

The plaintiff and her parents are seeking a jury trial and damages in excess of $50,000. The parents contend that their daughter has been physically and emotionally traumatized and permanently affected by the alleged sexual abuse.

Van Syckle is due back in court for a status hearing on May 23 in Bridgeview. The date of a possible trial has not been indicated.