Girls found coach's phone secretly recording them in locker room, affidavit says

ALCORN COUNTY, Miss. -- (WMC) -- Officials have released new details about a Mid-South coach and teacher accused of secretly filming students.

The Alcorn County Sheriff said Kossuth Middle School teacher Micah Wilbanks was formally charged with five counts of secretly photographing for lewd purposes.

Officials said Wilbanks was secretly videotaping in the Kossuth Middle School girls' basketball locker room.

He was originally arrested May 2 on separate charges.

WTVA said according to the affidavit, girls found an iPhone with video that showed them changing clothes. They deleted the video and took it to a female coach, who confronted Wilbanks.

Wilbanks showed the coach where he had hidden the phone.

Fifteen minutes later, Principal Sam Roberts said he confronted Wilbanks and noticed he had trouble walking and had slurred speech.

"Principal Roberts says once Wilbanks was in the principal's office, Wilbanks stated he had messed up and didn't deserve to be in public education," according to the document. That is when the principal called the Alcorn County Sheriff's Department.

The affidavit also said that deputies overheard Wilbanks call himself a "piece of [----]" and a "pedophile."

Deputies arrested the coach for public intoxication and added they found what appeared to be crystal methamphetamine in a pocket on his pants. That led to him being booked on a drug charge in addition to the intoxication charge.

Shortly after the arrest, the school district fired Wilbanks.

According to the affidavit, three videos were recovered from the smartphone:

One showed Wilbanks in a storage room on the backside of a locker room wall. Another showed a limited view of the locker room with no girls present. The third showed five girls in the locker room with one removing her shorts, a second seeing the phone before pointing it out and a third grabbing the phone.

A preliminary hearing was held for Wilbanks Monday in federal court in Oxford. That hearing will resume Thursday.