Principal Charged For Nude Taping

A high school principal was charged Wednesday with secretly videotaping 16 cheerleaders as they undressed to get into swimsuits for a beach party at his lakefront home.

Walter Conte, 50, was implicated after the cheerleaders became suspicious of a blinking light in the room they were changing clothes in Tuesday evening. They told their parents, who called police.

Police with a search warrant found videotaping equipment behind a trap door in a bathroom wall, Chief Richard A. Amiott said. A mirror and several videotapes also were seized.

Conte, the principal of Charles Brush High School in nearby Lyndhurst, was charged with using a minor in nudity-oriented materials, a felony punishable by up to eight years in prison.

He was released on a $5,000 bond and was ordered to keep women under 21 years old away from his home.