Janitor who hid camera in bathroom sentenced

A janitor who set up a hidden camera inside a bathroom at the Imperial Beach school where he worked was sentenced Friday to one year in county jail and placed on probation for a term of three years.

Freddy Mogollan, 39, was sentenced in Chula Vista Superior Court on felony and misdemeanor charges stemming from his conduct at Bayside STEAM Academy, where a staff member discovered a cellphone hidden inside a bathroom stall on Oct. 21, 2021.

He later pleaded guilty to one felony count of possessing matter depicting a person under 18 in sexual conduct and four misdemeanor counts of invading the privacy of another with a concealed camera for the purpose of sexual gratification.

Prosecutors said the charge associated with a minor victim does not involve a student at the school, near the southern tip of San Diego Bay.

He was also ordered to register as a sex offender. Aside from the criminal case, several teachers sued Mogollan and the South Bay Union School District earlier this year, asserting a hostile work environment and other claims. The district has also filed a cross complaint against Mogollan.

At his sentencing hearing on Friday, Mogollan apologized to the victims in attendance.

“From the bottom of my heart, I wish to ask for forgiveness from each one of you for everything I’ve caused and for having harmed you so bad,” he said through a Spanishspeaking interpreter.

In English, he added: “I ask you to forgive me for what I did to you, because I (will) never forgive myself for what I’ve done to you.”

One of the victims told Mogollan in court that she now checks the vents every day while using that bathroom and does the same inside other restrooms in public.

Another woman who worked as a teacher at Bayside STEAM Academy said she felt “violated and humiliated beyond words” and she “now must live with the fact that we will never know how long this has been going on or who else really has those videos.”