photo by: Douglas County Sheriff's Office

Brian Hutton

In an unusual turn of events, a defendant has pleaded up, not down, in a criminal case, and on Tuesday he was given a year of probation and ordered to have no contact with his victims.

It’s not clear why the 36-year-old defendant, Brian Hutton, a former high school English teacher, pleaded guilty to a higher level crime than what he was originally charged with, but doing so evidently means that he will be able to avoid some consequences of having a sex-related offense on his record.

Hutton was originally charged in March of this year with four counts of breach of privacy — a level 8 person felony — after he allegedly secretly recorded four different people for the purpose of viewing their nude bodies or undergarments without their consent or knowledge. Three of the counts allegedly occurred between Oct. 17, 2022, and June 11, 2024, and one of them allegedly occurred on June 11, 2024.

It wasn’t clear from court records where the crimes were committed, but some of the listed witnesses are employed by Berry Plastics, as was Hutton for several years, and part of Hutton’s sentence is that he cannot return to Berry Plastics, a Douglas County manufacturing plant that was recently purchased by Amcor.

In the amended complaint, three of the breach of privacy counts were changed to three counts of aggravated assault, which is a level 7 person felony — one level more serious than level 8 breach of privacy but without a sexual component. The complaint describes aggravated assault as knowingly placing another person in reasonable apprehension of immediate bodily harm with the intent to commit any felony, in this case breach of privacy. The fourth count was dismissed as part of the plea agreement, as was the entirety of another case from October 2021, in which he was also accused of breaching a person’s privacy via a concealed camera.

Hutton apologized to the court for his behavior.

“I am incredibly sorry to everyone involved in this case,” he told Judge Stacey Donovan, noting that it was not his intent to hurt anyone but acknowledging that he had in fact hurt people.

Hutton said he would attempt to atone for the crimes, and he pledged never to repeat them. None of his victims spoke at the sentencing.

Donovan noted Hutton’s expression of “shame” and that he had taken responsibility for his actions. She also observed that “you pleaded to higher level counts than you were charged with.”

Donovan sentenced Hutton to 12 months on each of the three counts, to run concurrently, then suspended the sentence to 12 months of probation, which aligns with Kansas Sentencing Guidelines for someone with no prior criminal history. She also ordered him to pay $513 in various costs and fees, which he can work off with community service.

Hutton was at one time a teacher at Ottawa High School. In 2019, he was charged with sexual exploitation of a child, but court records indicate that charge was dismissed. His LinkedIn profile indicates that he was an English teacher at Ottawa for six years, from 2011 to 2017. After that he worked for the University of Kansas for a year as a test development assistant, then for Berry Plastics for nearly five years, most recently as a “health safety environment coordinator.”