Utah school bus driver arrested for investigation of voyeurism while driving children

HERRIMAN — A school bus driver has been arrested in Herriman for allegedly recording a young girl with his cell phone while he was driving the bus.

Gabriele Basile, 64, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on Wednesday for investigation of two counts of voyeurism and using his phone while driving.

Basile was a driver for the Jordan School District. A district spokeswoman told KSL he has since been fired.

The alleged incident happened on Oct. 8.

"Basile, while driving a school bus full of children, has his phone near his lap and turns the camera toward a 10-year-old female child victim that is wearing a green and white skirt," according to a police booking affidavit. "(The girl) is sitting in the first seat to the right of Basile while he is driving. Basile then turns the camera toward his face, looks at the camera, then proceeds to turn the camera of the phone back toward the child victim. The child victim does not appear to notice Basile recording her."

The video is 33 seconds long, the affidavit states.

Basile and his wife have a shared Google account, so the video appeared in the account after it was recorded, according to police. When confronted by his wife, Basile claimed he would erase the video and report himself to the school district and resign, according to the affidavit.

However, "when Gabriele Basile didn't report himself, Gabriele Basile's wife asked her daughter to report the incident and provide the video" to district officials, the report states. A spokeswoman said that once the district found out about the allegations, the case was immediately reported to Herriman police and Basile was removed from his bus driving duties.

Detectives interviewed Basile's wife and daughter, who said he "has a pornography addiction and has a home computer, numerous external storage devices, and multiple email and social media accounts," the affidavit states.

Police served a search warrant on Basile's phone, and he was arrested.

"On his phone, there was the original video taken on Oct. 8 and another video of the same child victim was found in his deleted videos. In the video, you are able to see that the bus is continuously moving while Gabriele Basile is driving," according to the affidavit. "Gabriele Basile told family that if he ever got in trouble with the law, he would just fly home to Italy and live with his mother."