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[cranefly]

Was the email sent to a university address? Have your IT department document it and back it up for safe keepings immediately!

[athenaq]

Campus IT person here.

First:  there is NO way that the OP could have acquired the pictures in the way she said he did.  Not unless he had some extraordinarily 1337 hacking skills, which I seriously doubt.

Second:  Tell your Information Technology department about this incident immediately.   Seriously, I don't know what your VP's deal is.  If IT happened to run across those files on your computer, you would most assuredly be investigated for abuse of campus resources. 

[sciencephd]

Campus IT person here.

First:  there is NO way that the OP could have acquired the pictures in the way she said he did.  Not unless he had some extraordinarily 1337 hacking skills, which I seriously doubt.

Second:  Tell your Information Technology department about this incident immediately.   Seriously, I don't know what your VP's deal is.  If IT happened to run across those files on your computer, you would most assuredly be investigated for abuse of campus resources. 

Doesn't the OP say that they were emailed to her ?

[scheherazade]

A week later, I got a letter from her in which she attacked me and accused me of mining deeply within her files, past two folders marked "Do not open," to locate her private pictures.  

I think this is what Athenaq means - that the OP could not possibly have purposefully or accidentally "mined files" from the student's computer to access and download these pictures.  The student emailed them, plain and simple.

[conjugate]

Sexual harassment is about exerting power on the victim so the "perp" gets some kind of advantage. The case of the  accidental emailing of one's own erotic photographs does not constitute sexual harassment. 

I respectfully disagree, though this may vary from state to state.  Unwanted sexual contact, references, or images may constitute sexual harrassment; it seems clear that these are unwanted sexual images.  OP should at least talk with HR or campus lawyer, and get it on record ASAP that he or she did nothing to encourage this kind of email.

As far as the claim of the student that the instructor opened a student folder they were not supposed to, any member of the university's IT technical staff can testify that this is (a) not technically possible (b) if possible it was the student's responsibility to safeguard the content let alone not have such content on university computers.

Folks, it was an accident. Lets not try to make it more than it is. We already live in a litigious society.

I can agree that we don't need more litigation, but the OP needs a good defense, and that may be a good offense in this case.  I'm also not thinking of litigation, but student conduct code violation, which is not a criminal matter (usually).

[athenaq]

I think this is what Athenaq means - that the OP could not possibly have purposefully or accidentally "mined files" from the student's computer to access and download these pictures.  The student emailed them, plain and simple.

Yes, that is exactly what I meant.  :)

Seriously, tell your IT people.  I'm a student worker, and therefore I do a lot of the "grunt work" in my department.  I am the one who actually physically goes out and works on faculty and staff computers.  I respect people's privacy, and never intentionally snoop through their files.  However, sometimes I can not help but notice when things aren't as they should be.  For instance, a virus scan actually scrolls through the file name as they are being scanned for malicious software.  As you can imagine, waiting on this process to complete is rather boring.  I usually sit and stare as the file names whiz by, and if I see a file titled "hotlatinaxxx.jpg" you best believe I'm notifying the security division of my department. 

This is just one example of ways in which your IT people could inadvertently happen across the pictures, were you to keep them on your PC as evidence.  By all means, create a trail of evidence to CYA.  Just make sure that you don't cause more problems for yourself than necessary while creating the trail.