Former teacher gets four years in voyeurism case
A former Texarkana, Ark., teacher who secretly filmed boys using the restroom at the school where he formerly taught was sentenced to four years in prison Monday as part of a plea bargain in Miller County.
Shane Samuel Jones, 31, appeared with Texarkana lawyers Danny Cook and Bart Craytor before Circuit Judge Brent Haltom in a second-floor courtroom of the Miller County courthouse to enter pleas of guilty to voyeurism and video voyeurism. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Connie Mitchell, who was standing in for Deputy Prosecuting attorney Kristian Robertson, said Jones’ plea bargain includes four years of prison followed by two years of suspended imposition of sentence on each case. Jones must also register as a sex offender upon release.
If Jones commits a new offense in the two years following the four-year prison term, he could be ordered to serve more time behind bars. Jones will serve both sentences at the same time.
Both of the offenses to which Jones pleaded guilty in Miller County are punishable by one to six years in prison. Jones must pay court costs and fees, a
fee to have his DNA added to a criminal database and a fee to offset the cost of his sex offender registration.
Mitchell balked when Cook asked Haltom if Jones could have jail credit toward his sentence for each day he has been outfitted with a GPS leg monitor required as a condition of his bond in Bowie County. Mitchell said Jones spent two days in jail before posting bond and is eligible only for two days credit toward his four-year prison term. At the end of his hearing Monday, Jones was taken into custody.
Jones confessed to filming students while working as a teacher at Trinity Christian School in Texarkana, Ark., while being questioned about an incident Nov. 26 in a men’s bathroom at J.C. Penney in Central Mall in Texarkana, Texas. An 11-yearold boy told his parents that while in a stall, someone slipped a cell phone beneath the divider and took his picture.
The boy’s father sent his son to notify store employees while the father assured Jones would not leave the store without speaking to police. Jones was arrested several days later after he admitted to filming students and allegedly to filming the boy at J.C. Penney and deleting the video.
“He stated that he began videoing male students at his place of employment, Trinity Christian School, while they were using the toilets in the bathroom stalls approximately two years ago,” the affidavit states.
Jones admitted to having approximately 10 videos on an old cellphone. He also admitted to filming two male bathroom users at J.C. Penney on two occasions and five male bathroom users at Trinity Christian School on five occasions using the iPhone which was seized from him at the time of his arrest.
Jones was fired from his job as a teacher at Trinity Christian because of the allegations. Jones began teaching at the school in 2015 after several years of employment as a teacher at College Hill Middle School, according to earlier reports.
A charge of invasive visual recording remains pending against Jones in Bowie County, Texas. At a hearing in February, 202nd District Judge John Tidwell refused to accept a plea bargain that included a term of probation, telling Jones that he might get probation from a jury but he wasn’t going to get it from the court.
The charge Jones is facing in Bowie County is punishable by six months to two years in a Texas state jail. He is scheduled to appear before Tidwell in mid-August.