For secret upskirt recordings, former Columbus teacher will spend years in prison

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- A former Columbus high school teacher faces 20 years in prison for secretly taking sexually explicit videos of students.

After pleading guilty in May, Justin Foley, 48, was sentenced to 20 years in prison Tuesday on one count of sexually exploiting a minor and one count of child pornography, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Ohio. In addition to sexually explicit images and videos Foley produced of students, federal law enforcement found that he possessed more than 1,000 images of child sexual abuse, predominantly of prepubescent girls.

Foley worked as a teacher at the Columbus City School District since 2013 and was an AP chemistry teacher at Columbus Alternative High School, a public magnet college preparatory school. He resigned in October 2022, one day after the district began the process of firing him.

An FBI review of Foley's devices found multiple videos filmed at Columbus Alternative High School in which Foley attempted to record up the skirts of female students. Other, similarly "voyeuristic" footage was filmed at local department stores across central Ohio and public areas of downtown Delaware, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Foley was originally charged in Delaware County in September 2022, but a federal indictment superseded those charges. Court documents indicated that Foley admitted to creating the footage and recording students as recently as the week before he was arrested.

Delaware police were first tipped off to Foley by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in August 2022, when the center tracked IP addresses accessing child sexual abuse material from Delaware County. Those IP addresses were later traced back to Foley -- who accessed child sex abuse material multiple times from Columbus City Schools property.