A suspended Pleasant Valley School District administrator — who has been accused of illegally videotaping employees — has now been accused of lying to a grand jury.

The Monroe County District Attorney’s office filed perjury charges this week against Joshua Ryan Krebs, of Kunkletown.

Krebs is currently out on bail awaiting trial on charges he illegally placed a wireless video camera in a break room at Pleasant Valley Elementary School in 2016.

The camera captured video and audio of employees in what they thought was a private space where they could make calls regarding family and medical issues.

On Monday, the DA’s office filed new charges, accusing Krebs of making false statements to a grand jury earlier this year. The grand jury is investigating allegations of corruption, retaliation, bribery, wiretap and oppression in the Pleasant Valley School District.

The alleged false statements had to do with the use of the camera, a meeting where he told employees about the illegal camera, and an incident, which occurred at a Towamensing Township bar nearly 10 years ago.

False statements

According to court documents during grand jury testimony on April 24, Krebs made false statements about using the wireless camera before he allegedly placed it in the break room at PVE in April 2016. He testified that he used the camera in the boiler room in another school for two consecutive nights, because he believed employees were smoking cigarettes, violating district policies. One night the camera worked and the other, the battery died, he said.

Detectives investigating the case said that was untrue, after analyzing a hard drive that captured audio and video from the video camera. They said they found footage of the boiler room from four separate nights between February and March of 2016.

The detectives also accused Krebs of lying about the time it took him to review a night of footage. He testified that while fast-forwarding it took him 10 to 15 minutes, which they said would not be long enough to review the footage. He also denied that he told a custodian supervisor that one of her employees was planning to quit, but detectives said in notes that Krebs took while watching the footage, he had written, circled and marked the name of the employee who planned to quit.

Meeting with employees

Another allegation stemmed from testimony about a meeting with employees after the camera was discovered in the break room at PVE. Krebs testified that the camera did not record audio, and that he did not tell employees that it did during the meeting, which occurred in the PVE gym.

Eight other witnesses, employees of the school district who were present at the meeting in the gym, told police that they specifically recalled Krebs saying that the camera recorded audio, but it was difficult to hear.

Krebs also testified that he didn’t tell employees that they could expect privacy in the break room. A staff member stated that Krebs told her it was.

Previous incident

One allegation against Krebs stemmed from an incident that took place in 2009 at the former Wild Creek Saloon in Towamensing Township. A Pleasant Valley teacher who was present told police that she saw Krebs and another school district employee groping a woman inside the crowded bar. The teacher told police the woman was visibly intoxicated and unable to give consent. The teacher said she and her date confronted the men and helped the victim out of the bar.

Krebs testified that he was at the bar having food and a few drinks, but he denied seeing the other man acting inappropriately, or being confronted by the teacher.

The teacher’s date also spoke to police about the incident. He said Krebs and the other man “ran out of the bar” after they were confronted. He said he emailed Krebs and the other employee, and Krebs apologized for his behavior and role in the incident.

No charges were ever filed in the incident. The teacher subsequently asked to be transferred out of Pleasant Valley Elementary, because Krebs was the school’s assistant principal at the time.

Krebs’ preliminary hearing has been set for July 20 before Magisterial District Judge Kristina Anzini in Stroudsburg.

He is also awaiting trial on wiretapping charges stemming from the camera discovered at PVE. His next court date in that case is Aug. 29 before Monroe County Court of Common Pleas Judge Jonathan Mark.