Raymond Vance Fulkerson, 63, a former University of Northern Colorado theater professor who is serving four years in prison for secretly videotaping underage boys that showered and used the toilet in his home bathroom, has been denied parole at the Bent County Correctional Facility in Las Animas on Wednesday.
Fulkerson pleaded guilty in January to one felony account of sexual exploitation of a child, 7News reports, and in exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors dropped 16 total counts against him.
Fulkerson was accused of secretly videotaping at least 13 male students between the ages of 5 and 16 who would come to his home for voice and acting lessons.
The former theater professor was once highly celebrated at the nationally known University of Northern Colorado theater program. Judge Thomas Quammen stated in Fulkerson’s original trial in March:
I'm sure a lot of students went through your program, and you made a great impact on them. But you are here today because you violated the trust of these victims and in a very base way.
The Denver Post reports that the videotaping took place over an approximately two-year period from 2007-2009. Fulkerson was arrested in 2009 when one of the victimized students discovered a hidden camera inside of a digital clock on top of the toilet in the bathroom of Fulkerson’s home.
The video recorded from that bathroom was fed directly to six of Fulkerson’s televisions in his bedroom which also doubled as his video editing suite where Fulkerson created more than 150 DVDs from the secretly recorded footage.
The Denver Post reports that prosecutor Anthony Perea said that Fulkerson used his lengthy and accomplished resume to lure young actors to his home for coaching. Some victims came in from out of state to stay with Fulkerson over the summer and study with him. Perea made this statement during Fulkerson’s original trial:
This resume was his candy to get victims into his house and into his bathroom to pull their pants down and urinate for him.
During his original sentencing hearing, Fulkerson was emotional and appeared to deeply regret his actions, The Denver Post reports Fulkerson’s statement:
Sadly, I hurt everyone closest to me. My words of encouragement and my belief in [my students] were sincere.
The trial and conviction of Faulkerson led to a comprehensive review of the University of Northern Colorado’s School of Theatre Arts and Dance and a reassessment of private, unsupervised tutoring by UNC professors. The 10-page report by Mountain States Employers largely exonerated the theatre program of wrongdoing in the wake of Fualkerson’s arrest, according to The Greeley Tribune.