California teacher sentenced to 215 years for filming himself sexually abusing students

A "longtime teacher" in Sacramento was sentenced to 215 years to life in prison after admitting in court to sexually assaulting female students and photographing and videotaping the abuse, county prosecutors announced.

Kim Kenneth Wilson, 64, pleaded guilty to nine counts of committing lewd acts upon a child on Feb. 25. On Friday, Aug. 22, Judge Satnam Rattu handed down the sentence to the now-former Del Paso Heights Elementary School teacher, according to the Sacramento County Prosecutor's Office.

Throughout Wilson's tenure at the elementary school, he would take female students to a room designated for a private media/broadcasting club he established, prosecutors said. Once in the room alone with the girls, he "committed sex acts on the students, often photographing or recording the sex acts," prosecutors added.

While most of the sexual assaults happened in the school broadcasting room, some of Wilson's victims were assaulted at the teacher's home during events he hosted, according to the prosecutor's office. When law enforcement learned about the sexual assaults, Sacramento police detectives searched Wilson's home and found several "child sized sex toys," prosecutors said.

Additionally, detectives discovered a "substantial amount of VHS tapes, DVDs and other digital storage devices containing videos depicting Wilson sexually assaulting his students," prosecutors stated. The videos include abuse spanning multiple years, with numerous students, according to prosecutors, adding that the recorded content also shows Wilson forcing the children "to look into the camera while saying and depicting sexual acts."

Under California law, Wilson will be eligible for release once he serves 20 years of his 215-year-to-life sentence. According to court records, Wilson has been in jail since his arrest in late January 2023. Counting in-custody credits, he'll have to serve 17 more years before being eligible for release.

Student sues Twin Rivers Unified School District, Kim Wilson

Wilson and his former employer, the Twin Rivers Unified School District, are being sued in June 2023 by a female student who alleged she was "physically and sexually assaulted, sexually harassed, molested, threatened and intimidated" by the now-imprisoned teacher during school hours on the Del Paso Heights Elementary School campus, according to the complaint obtained by USA TODAY.

The student, who was 7 at the time, alleged the abuse occurred when she was in second grade during the 2013-2014 school year, the complaint says. The lawsuit also accuses Wilson of frequently giving frontal hugs to female students on school grounds, and regularly pulling the accuser and other girls out of their scheduled class periods and/or recess periods to invite them into a "secluded and unsupervised broadcast room" on the elementary school's campus.

In addition to alleging the abuse at the hands of Wilson, the student and her guardian are accusing the Twin Rivers Unified School District of "mishandling student complaints and failing to document, investigate and report complaints" of sexual misconduct by the now-former district employee.

Attorney Lauren Cerri, who represented a different student in a similar lawsuit against Wilson and the district, told The Sacramento Bee, "Sadly there’s a repeated pattern of schools putting their image and reputations over the safety of students, turning a blind eye to complaints and ignoring red flags."

The lawsuit Cerri was part of, which was filed in January 2023, settled earlier this month for $6 million, reported the Sacramento Bee. The lawsuit filed in June 2023 is still ongoing, court records show.

USA TODAY contacted the Twin Rivers Unified School District and its attorney on Saturday, Aug. 23, but has not received a response.

Court records do not show an attorney listed for Wilson in his criminal and civil cases. As of Saturday, Aug. 23, he is also no longer listed on Del Paso Heights Elementary School's staff page.