BELLINGHAM - An alleged Peeping Tom has been charged with videotaping a woman through her Bellingham apartment window.

The video was uncovered in late August when Colin Peter Curley, 40, was spotted leering at a woman walking on Elm Street, according to charging documents.

An officer asked to see the video camera he was carrying. Curley let the officer look through his footage, according to the charges. A clip dated March 16, 2012, showed a woman in her 20s being recorded through a window at night. Curley insisted he didn't know anything about that video. The camera was confiscated.

A month later Curley went to the police station for an interview. He admitted he shot the footage - but said he was simply "curious about the layout of the apartment," wrote Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Mac Setter.

After officers got a warrant to search the rest of the camera, they found hundreds of still images and videos of women taken in public places without their knowledge. Two videos showed Curley having sex with women who didn't appear to be aware of the camera, Setter wrote.

The victim in the March video was identified as a 23-year-old woman who briefly rented a J Street apartment. She "felt very violated by the idea of somebody peering through her windows and filming her at that late hour," according to the charges.

Curley later admitted he hid in a bush by the window and held the camera lens above his head, like a periscope, to film the woman, prosecutors alleged.

When officers arrived to arrest Curley at his home in the 2100 block of J Street, they found his phone had more photos showing the buttocks of unsuspecting women, Sutter wrote.

Curley was charged with one count of voyeurism, a class C felony. He posted $1,000 bond and was arraigned Friday, Oct. 19. He had prior run-ins with the law on similar charges at Portland State University and in California.

Reach CALEB HUTTON at caleb.hutton@bellinghamherald.com or call 360-715-2276.