Will Cleveland – Rochester Democrat and Chronicle USA TODAY NETWORK – in the D&C on 3/14/21
A Parma music school owner who hid a camera in the school’s restroom pleaded guilty to federal child pornography charges, officials announced Friday.
Philip M. Close, 43, pleaded guilty to a 74-count indictment, including 61 counts of production of child pornography. He faces a maximum of 2,090 years in prison and an $18 million fine, prosecutors said. “The defendant occupied a position of trust with respect to his students,” U.S. Attorney James P. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. “His perverse violation of that trust, together with our duty to protect our children, warrant the defendant being held fully accountable for all that he did, and full accountability is precisely what today’s plea ensures.”
Between 2016 and 2019, Close owned the Close School of Music on West Ridge Road, where he provided private music lessons to children. He put “spy cameras throughout the school and secretly recorded the students, parents, and other teachers,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Meghan McGuire said. Two cameras were in the school’s only bathroom — one under a toilet and the other in a water cooler facing the toilet. McGuire said the cameras were strategically placed in these positions.