A Former Music Teacher Is Sentenced to 50 Years in Prison for Secretly Videotaping Children
A federal judge Tuesday sentenced a Parma music school owner who hid cameras in the school’s bathroom, videotaping children, to 50 years in prison.
Philip Close, 43, owned the Close School of Music on West Ridge Road between 2016 and 2019, providing private music lessons to children. There, he placed hidden cameras in the school’s bathroom, with one under a toilet and one in a water cooler facing the toilet, and in other locations in the facility.
In a guilty plea in March, Close admitted that he also placed hidden cameras in the bathroom of another music school where he’d earlier worked. Prosecutors identified 61 children on images from the schools’ cameras, and say Close took hundreds of videos.
The youngest victim was 4 years old, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Meghan McGuire, who prosecuted the case.
