CASTLE ROCK, Colo. — A former taekwondo instructor was sentenced Friday after previously pleading guilty to recording children in changing rooms, the 18th Judicial District Attorney's Office said.
Erik Chen, 32, was sentenced to 50 years in prison. He pleaded guilty in March to three counts of sexual exploitation of a child.
Chen was arrested in July 2022. Castle Rock police said at the time that the known incidents occurred from the beginning of 2019 to early 2021, when Chen ran camps as an instructor at Han Lee’s Taekwondo Academy. Police said the charges stemmed from multiple incidents throughout Douglas County and Aurora.
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Investigators were first made aware of accusations against Chen in February 2021, when a parent contacted Aurora Police. He reported that his daughters told him they were changing at the Lone Tree Recreation Center when they found Chen's phone recording them. Prosecutors said the victims indicated they deleted the videos. An incident report was taken, but, prosecutors said Friday, "there was not enough probable cause or evidence to make an arrest at that time."
In June 2021, a therapist reported to police that a patient had disclosed that Chen had recorded her in a restroom at the Castle Rock Rec Center sometime in 2020.
Prosecutors said the investigation found that on multiple occasions, Chen left his backpack in a changing room or restroom with his cell phone recording in a side pocket. One of the victims reported noticing the phone hanging out the side of Chen’s backpack and went to turn it around out of caution and found it was recording, prosecutors said.
In August 2021, police searched Chen's electronic devices and his home. Prosecutors said police seized multiple computers, CDs and DVDs that contained "hundreds of thousands of images of child pornography depicting girls believed to be between the ages of 8 and 12." Most of those files were downloaded material, the arrest affidavit said.
"In addition to the hundreds of thousands of pornographic images of young children, detectives discovered more than a half dozen videos Chen took in local bathrooms or locker rooms where young girls and one boy are seen changing clothes," prosecutors said in a news release Friday. "Chen is also visible on some of the videos setting up the phone to record."
Shortly after the search warrant was executed at Chen's home, investigators learned he was hired by Lifetime Fitness in Centennial to run their Kids Camp. On April 4, 2022, the affidavit said, Chen was arrested on suspicion of striking a child in the face multiple times. He pleaded guilty in June 2022 and was sentenced to 24 months of supervised probation.
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