
DATE: Friday, November 21, 1997             TAG: 9711210638

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:  114 lines

JUDGE SAYS TAPES AREN'T LEWD, FREES COACH PARENTS AND VICTIMS EXPRESS OUTRAGE AT THE VERDICT AFTER WAITING TWO YEARS.

Former track coach John W. Crute walked out of court a free man Thursday afternoon when a judge ruled that the videotapes he secretly made of teen-age girls undressing in a Woodrow Wilson High School locker room were not sexually explicit.

The girls and their parents immediately erupted with outrage over Circuit Judge Von Piersall's ruling, running from the courtroom in tears and condemning Piersall and the judicial system that allowed Crute to go unpunished even though he admitted to making the videotapes.

Their frustration was heightened by the fact that they had waited more than two years for the case to come to trial. Crute, a Latin teacher and track coach at Wilson High, was charged and then suspended from his teaching job in August 1995, but defense motions delayed the case several times in the months after his arrest and release on bond.

Many of the victims and their families gathered immediately after the ruling in front of the courtroom to express their anger. They were asked to move outside the building by sheriff's deputies. Crute left the courtroom through another exit.

``I don't understand how they could let him get away with this,'' said 17-year-old Lavina Falzone, who was a 14-year-old student when she was videotaped by Crute. ``Everybody could get away with it, that is what they are telling other people.''

``It's disgusting,'' said 19-year-old Kellee Chambers, a University of Virginia math major who was a 14-year-old high school student when Crute videotaped her. ``It's been two-and-a-half years, and I still didn't get justice. And he got off.''

``It took so long for this to happen, then it's over in two days,'' added Chambers' mother, Lisa Davis. ``And we get slapped in the face.''

Crute, 47, made videotapes showing at least 18 high school girls in various stages of undress, innocently exposing their bodies as they tried on track uniforms in the locker room.

Crute lured the girls - many of whom were on his track team - to the locker room on weekends by claiming that he was making a track-uniform poster and needed models.

While the girls changed clothes in the locker room, Crute secretly videotaped them with a camcorder hidden in a storage closet. Crute, who focused the camcorder through a hole in the wall, produced the tapes from 1990 to 1995.

Crute then spliced the tapes of the girls onto tapes that contained movies showing adults having sex. The tapes also contained segments of situation comedies and sporting events.

Crute was caught when a security guard found the camcorder while checking the storage closet. Police then raided Crute's home and confiscated almost 400 videotapes. Another 50 tapes were found later at the school.

It took police months to view the tapes, identify the victims and notify them that they had been videotaped.

Initially, Crute was charged with 25 misdemeanor charges and 19 felony charges. Eventually all of the misdemeanor charges of improperly videotaping a minor were dropped when it was determined they all occurred more than a year before the tapes were discovered. The statute of limitations on a misdemeanor in Virginia is 12 months.

The state argued during the trial that Crute, by splicing the videos of the underage girls next to the sexually explicit movies, turned the videotapes into a lewd display of nudity.

``This was clearly done for his own sexual gratification,'' said Commonwealth's Attorney Martin Bullock.

But Piersall refused to believe that theory.

``Nobody is trying to defend the defendant in this case,'' said Piersall. ``His behavior is poor to say the least. . . . He has threatened the confidence all of us might have in our teachers and our coaches. He has created a lot of problems.''

But the judge explained that ``lewdness'' is defined in Virginia law as exhibitions that contain such acts as bestiality and sado-masochistic behavior. Mere nudity, he said, does not constitute a lewd exhibition.

Just before Piersall ruled, the commonwealth removed most of the tapes from consideration, agreeing that they did not show lewd nudity. They rested their case on two tapes that showed spliced tapes of the girls next to sexually explicit movies.

``The argument (the commonwealth) is making is that putting scenes of girls changing clothes on the same tape with (adult sex scenes) elevates it to a crime,'' Piersall said. ``I rule that the remaining tapes are not sexually explicit visual material.''

Bullock said he didn't agree with the ruling but realized ``it was going to be a very tough call for the judge.''

Bullock said he had hoped Piersall would let the jury decide the case.

``That is what we were pushing for,'' Bullock said.

That is also what parents of the girls wanted.

``The jury would have decided in favor of these young ladies,'' said the Rev. John Colander, a father of one of the victims and pastor at Faith Temple in Suffolk. ``You could see it in the expressions on their faces. Something is wrong in this system.''

Even one of Crute's attorneys, William P. Robinson Jr., agreed that the outcome of the trial indicated a need for a change in the law. Robinson, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, promised to introduce legislation to change the statute of limitations on misdemeanors.

Kerri Albertson, the public information officer for Portsmouth Public Schools, said Thursday that Crute was suspended from his teaching job the same week that he was charged with making the videotapes. Crute's pay has been held in escrow, Albertson said.

``We would not have any further comment until legal counsel has reviewed today's ruling,'' Albertson said.

Bullock, however, said that Crute's days as a teacher should be over.

``I would hope no school in the world would allow a person like this around children,'' Bullock said. ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

D. KEVIN ELLIOTT/The Virginian-Pilot

Kellee Chambers, 19, is reduced to tears outside Portsmouth Circuit

Court on Thursday. Chambers, who allowed this photograph to be taken

during an interview, was secretly videotaped by John Crute.

Color Photo

John Crute KEYWORDS: TRIAL SEX CRIME PORTSMOUTH SCHOOLS PEEPING TOM

TEACHER