Former Gilman School teacher Chris Bendann: Jury sees videos at sexual abuse trial

Content warning: This story contains details of allegations of sexual abuse.

One video shows the student touching himself shirtless in an SUV. Another shows him taking a bath. And yet another shows his eighth-grade teacher washing him in the shower.

The student was 16 or 17 years old at the time.

FBI Special Agent Calista Walker provided these brief descriptions of what federal prosecutors say the videos show on Monday before playing clips to the jury in the trial of Chris Bendann, a former Gilman School teacher accused of sexually abusing a student.

Bendann, 40, of Baltimore, is charged in U.S. District Court in Baltimore with sexual exploitation of a child, possession of child pornography and cyberstalking. He worked at the private, independent boys' school in Roland Park from 2007 to 2023.

His lawyers Christopher Nieto and Gary Proctor claim the videos showed the student after his 18th birthday.

The student has since graduated from Gilman School. He is now 23.

The Baltimore Banner does not publish the names of individuals who claim to be victims of sexual abuse without their permission.

Prosecutors went through eight videos one by one that another FBI special agent, Eric Oberly, said he recovered from an iCloud account belonging to Bendann, most of which feature him speaking and some of which feature him on screen.

Oberly testified that he found duplicates on a Dell Inspiron 15 and a Sony VAIO laptop that investigators took from Bendann's home while executing a search and seizure warrant.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Colleen McGuinn asked about the date the videos were recorded, the student's age at the time, and the cell phone used to record the videos.

“A clip, ma'am?” asked Chief U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar.

“Yes,” McGuinn replied.

“You can play it,” Bredar continued.

For some videos, the jury watched alongside transcripts in white folders bearing the seal of the U.S. Department of Justice.

McGuinn presented evidence that the metadata of some videos included GPS coordinates. They matched witness statements and notes Bendann had left in appointment calendars in which he noted where he worked as a house sitter for families on those days.

She showed side by side stills from the videos and pictures that the police had taken in these houses during their investigation.

Towards the end of the final video, Bredar abruptly called a recess, sent the jury out of the courtroom and urged prosecutors to play the rest.

He consulted with the lawyers several times via headphones while white noise could be heard in the courtroom.

“Private channel,” Bredar instructed.

After a 13-minute break, jurors watched the rest of the final clip. They also heard testimony about some of the Google searches Bendann had conducted over the years, including “naked blonde boys,” “naked boys outside,” and “naked boys in public.”

The FBI also discovered images of the student that were not sexually explicit.

These included a photo of him as a child. A picture of him sitting at a table in a restaurant. And a picture of his Maryland learner's permit.