News Releases

School Employee Charged with Recording Students in Changing Room

For Immediate Release: Thursday, April 16, 2026

Gaithersburg, MD — Detectives from the Montgomery County Department of Police – Special Victims Investigations Division have arrested a Clarksburg man for recording underage girls inside a Montgomery County Public Schools changing room.

On Wednesday, April 15, 2026, Montgomery County Public Schools staff notified MCPD that on Tuesday, April 7, two students at Walter Johnson High School found a video camera in the control booth of the school’s theater. One of the students viewed the contents of the memory card and saw videos recorded inside the girls’ changing room in the theater area.

The video shows an adult male placing the camera and leaving the room while it was recording. A short time later, teenage girls entered the room and began changing clothes for a theater performance.

A student emailed the videos to the school’s principal, who identified the man as 43-year-old James Mulhern III, a media services technician at the school.

On April 15, detectives executed a search warrant at Walter Johnson High School on Rock Spring Drive, where items of evidentiary value were recovered. Detectives also executed a search warrant at Mulhern’s Clarksburg home and collected several electronic devices.

Mulhern was arrested and charged with sex abuse of a minor. He was taken to the Montgomery County Central Processing Unit, where he is awaiting a bond hearing.

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Release ID: 26-170
Media Contact: S.D. Goff 
Categories: arrest , child-abuse , sexual-offense