GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A rowing coach now charged with four felonies after being suspected of secretly recording female students changing during practice told police he’s done it for years.
30-year-old Timothy Vallier, who is suspended from his job as the head rowing coach at Rockford Public Schools, was arraigned Monday on multiple charges related to the allegations that landed him jail over the weekend.
Vallier admitted to police he placed a video camcorder in a position in a changing room at the Rockford Crew House in order to record female athletes changing, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by FOX 17.
“Vallier stated that he has done this multiple times over the last few years and still possesses other videos of other female athletes changing their clothes,” Kent County Sheriff’s Detective Michael Tanis wrote in the probable cause affidavit. “The girls were unaware they were being filmed.”
Police said one of the females identified in a video was a 14-year-old girl who was completely unclothed.
Vallier is charged with one count of child sexually abusive activity, two counts of using a computer to commit a crime—both 20 year felonies—and one count of possessing child sexually abusive material.
The head rowing coach was arrested late Friday after a student discovered a camera that had recorded video inside a changing room in the Rockford Crew House, located at 5501 Jupiter Ave. in Plainfield Township.
Rockford Superintendent Michael Shibler said a female student discovered the camera in an SUV used by the crew team Friday. The student took to the camera to her mother who immediately notified police and the school district, Shibler told FOX 17.
“Stupid, absolutely stupid,” Shibler told FOX 17 on Sunday. “I guarantee you if the facts are as just stated, he’s done he is fired. He is over with, his employment is terminated.”
Vallier, who’d been coaching with the district since 2009, is currently on unpaid administrative leave from the district and is not allowed back onto school property.
He’s due back in court July 22.
