Hume sentenced to one year, probation
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After listening to attorney’s arguments and a passionate plea for justice written by one of the victims, Judge R. Douglas Holt accepted former Thatcher Art teacher Stephen Hume’s guilty plea and sentenced him on Monday to spend one year in the Graham County Jail.
Deputy County Attorney C. Alan Perkins said the case represented a betrayal of the trust and respect associated in a student/teacher relationship.
Hume was initially questioned by the Thatcher Police Department after one of his victims found a camera/video recording device while she was changing into clothes for an art project. Hume would instruct the girls to change in a storage closet where he had crudely set up a surveillance system to record them in a state of undress.
Perkins and Hume’s defense attorney, Wendell Hughes, agreed that the camera system was a poor attempt at voyeurism and that Hume had just begun engaging in that activity.
“The method that he chose to surreptitiously view these girls changing clothes was almost certain to get him caught,” Perkins said.
Hughes made sure to point out the many years of service Hume has performed for his family and the community, including his involvement in the Neighborhood Watch Program and 18 years as a water safety instructor for Safford pools.
“He made a mistake,” Hughes said. “It was a bad mistake. . . Ten minutes can ruin 20 years of work, and that’s basically what happened to him.”
At Hume’s previous change-of-plea hearing, Judge Holt deferred acceptance until sentencing because he was not satisfied with some of Hume’s answers. Holt then ordered Hume to take a lie detector test before moving forward.
Before the test, Hume admitted to authorities that he knew of one more memory card that he had hidden in a file cabinet in his previous office at Thatcher High School.
The card contained another victim in a state of undress, but the victim declined to press charges because Hume was already being prosecuted for the seven other victims.
Holt and Perkins said they were now satisfied that there is no other objectionable material in relation to Hume videotaping his students.
During the sentencing, the mother of one of the victims read a statement the victim had written.
The victim’s statement spoke of painfully reliving the experience every night through nightmares, ridicule by her peers forcing her out of school and being diagnosed with depression. The victim wrote Hume was one of her favorite teachers but ended up an authority figure who took advantage his power over her. It was important to her that Hume be forced to register as a sex offender so others would not be unaware of him.
Hume said he was ashamed and embarrassed for what he did. He apologized to the victims, their families, THS and the community as a whole.
Hughes asked if Hume would be given two days credit for one served for every day he taught the inmates as a trustee.
After initially granting Hughes’ request, Holt rescinded his judgement and said he felt Hume needed to serve the full year to satisfy the demand for punishment.
In addition to one year in jail on one count of attempted voyeurism, Holt sentenced Hume to serve three years of intensive probation upon his release for the six other attempted voyeurism counts and register as a sex offender.
Upon completion of his probation, his probation officer may recommend Hume be removed from the sex offender registration.
