Convicted locker room voyeur completes probation

A Joliet man has completed 30 months of sex offender probation after he pleaded guilty to secretly recording videos of girls in a school locker room.

Ryan Thompson, 31, satisfactorily completed the probation on Thursday, court records show. He will not have to register as a sex offender because he was convicted of unauthorized video recording, an offense that is not considered a sex crime under Illinois law.

Thompson was arrested in March 2017 by Crest Hill police. During a bond hearing, prosecutors said Thompson video recorded eighth-grade females in the locker room at Chaney-Monge School and that he did this for his own sexual gratification. Thompson worked at the school as a janitor.

Thompson’s ex-wife had reported him to police after she found videos on his work cellphone that showed he was recording girls at Chaney-Monge School.

“He was taping girls in the locker room as they were changing, although they were fully clothed in the videos,” Thompson’s ex-wife said in a protective order.

On Jan. 19, 2018, Thompson pleaded guilty to unauthorized video recording.

Judge Dave Carlson gave Thompson the maximum five-year sentence and cited a psycho-sexual evaluation that showed Thompson had an above average risk of committing similar offenses in the future.

Thompson’s attorney Nicole Sartori filed a motion requesting a lighter sentence for her client because he had no criminal history, he was not required to register as a sex offender and he could’ve been required to complete two years of sex offender treatment as a condition of probation.

Will County Assistant State’s Attorney Elizabeth Domagalla said five-year prison sentence was appropriate for Thompson to ensure public safety and to not detract from the seriousness of his crime.

Carlson initially stood by his sentence but he eventually mulled for months on how to give Thompson a sentence that would prevent him from re-offending, keep the community safe and let others know he was convicted of a crime involving children at a school that was sexual in nature.

Carlson changed Thompson’s sentence to 30 months of sex offender probation after learning the Illinois Department of Corrections lacked the resources to provide him sex offender treatment.

He said it made him sick the IDOC didn’t have the resources at the time to give Thompson treatment.

“But I can’t tell them what to do,” Carlson said.

Under sex offender probation, Thompson was required not to violate the law, not possess firearms or dangerous weapons and complete a sex offender evaluation, along with any recommended treatment or counseling.

Thompson was also required not to have contact with minors or go near places used primarily by children unless given permission by his probation officer. He could also not possess any sexually stimulating to sexually-oriented material “as deemed inappropriate by treatment staff” or probation officer, court records show.

On Sept. 5, 2019, Richard Buss, 38, of Crown Point, Indiana, had also pleaded guilty to unauthorized video recording of a minor.

Buss “knowingly made a video recording” of a child younger than age of 18 while she was in the bathroom of his home in the 22900 block of South Patricia Lane in Channahon, according to the criminal complaint.

He was sentenced to 30 months of sex offender probation on June 19, 2020. His probation ends on Dec. 15, 2022.