OC Dance Company Worker Accused Of Recording Girls Undressing, Possessing Child Porn
WESTMINSTER (CBSLA.com) — An assistant director and master of ceremonies of a Cypress dance production company has been accused of recording girls undressing and possessing more than 1,000 images of child pornography, authorities announced.
Paul Michael Barbour of Long Beach, who did not enter a plea in court Tuesday, was charged with one felony count each of possession and control of child pornography, possession for sale of a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance, and cultivating spores with the intent to produce a controlled substance, along with one misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct.
The 33-year-old also faces a sentencing enhancement allegation for possessing more than 600 child pornography images with more than 10 images of a minor under the age of 12, the Orange County District Attorney's Office said.
The defendant placed a hidden camera inside a changing room at Cypress College and recorded girls, between 12 and 15 years old, who were preparing to compete over the weekend, the D.A.'s Office said.
The camera was found by a mother of one of the dancers, who then reported the incident to Cypress police, according to the D.A.'s Office.
Officials said Barbour's face popped up on the screen adjusting the camera on a recording.
"I can tell you there was enough for us to determine he was videotaping and it was him who was doing it," Deputy District Attorney Bobby Taghavi said. "The video was recording young women dressing and undressing and getting prepped for their dance competitions."
Barbour also had more than 1,000 images of child pornography, unrelated to the dance production company, on his home computer, authorities said.
In addition, Barbour was accused of having about 22 pounds of controlled substances, which included several types of hallucinogens, and cultivating and growing mushrooms with an intent to sell.
An employee at Kids Artistic Revue confirmed that Barbour had worked for the Cypress-based dance competition company for the past six years. He also drove a truck for them, KCAL9's Bobby Kaple reported.
The company said they are "absolutely mortified" and called Barbour's alleged behavior "unacceptable."
If convicted, Barbour faces seven years in prison and six months in jail.
"Our concern is whenever we have somebody that is engaging in this type of activity and on top of that, has a very large amount of child pornography, and on top of that, they have access to children and part of their job is to have access to kids on a daily basis, or maybe on a weekly or monthly basis, is whether or not they've engaged in this conduct before. Or if anyone has noticed anything about that person that would be helping us in our investigating and identifying any possible victims," Taghavi said.
Anyone with additional information on Barbour or who knows other possible victims was asked to contact the Cypress Police Department's Criminal Investigative Bureau at (714) 229-6631 or Supervising District Attorney Investigator Paul Carvo at (714) 347-8794.
