Teacher charged with sexually assaulting student

by: Daniel Tepfer

ctpost

Nabokov wrote about it in “Lolita” and ever since it has been the nightmare of every parent — a middle-aged teacher falling for his young female student.

Glenn Mishuck, 47, has been a teacher for more than 20 years, the last 12 at Fairfield Ludlowe High School, with a spotless record. This year, he taught the Advanced Placement American studies course to a small group of bright-eyed students, who for the most part, appeared to appreciate his enthusiastic approach to learning. The students referred to him as Mish.

But to one 17-year-old girl he was much more than a history teacher.

It began with the mutual smiles, then the furtive glances and finally the texts, the sharing of their mutual “stressors,” according to police accounts.

It ended Thursday morning with Mishuck’s arrest by Fairfield police. He is charged with 17 counts of second-degree sexual assault.

It was the third arrest in Fairfield County of a teacher or youth leader this week for the sex assault of a teenager. On Tuesday, Paul Hines, 73, a longtime professor at Western Connecticut State University, was charged with having sexual contact with a 15-year-old boy in New York. Two days earlier, Morgan Frawley, 25, of Fairfield, youth group leader at the Congregational Church of New Canaan, was charged with risk of injury to a minor and allegedly had sexual relations with a teenage boy.

For Mishuck, it wasn’t until the late spring that he invited the girl over to his Black Rock apartment to do homework and “hang out.”

She ended up falling asleep on his couch. He carried her to the bed, but that night he returned to the couch to sleep alone.

Later there were the mutual massages that ended up leading to more. She recalled in detail each time they had sex. Fifteen times, the arrest warrant affidavit states. She said he would always use protection.

The girl would leave her house early, before her family woke up, to see him. Her family thought she was working or at the library. But she was with him.

They both knew their relationship was illegal and wrong; they often talked about it, but it continued, much as the relationship had in Vladimir Nabokov‘s transgressive 1955 novel — and with dire consequences.

Asked by police if Mishuck ever promised her anything, the girl said, “Only that he would not hurt me.”

On Sept. 17, police said the girl’s father became suspicious of his daughter supposedly leaving for the gym so early in the morning and grabbed her cellphone from her. Police said he began scrolling through her text messages as his daughter pleaded that she and “Mish” had a special friendship. The texts, later turned over to police, showed that it was more than that.

On Oct. 6 Mishuck resigned his teaching position after police tried to question him. But his texts to the girl continued.

“Just know I have said nothing,” he texted the girl. “I have a pretty good idea what they know. Just know that I care about you and believe in you so much.”

Thursday afternoon Mishuk, his hands cuffed in front of him, stood before Superior Court Judge Earl Richards.

Calling the bond of $150,000 excessive, Mishuk’s lawyer, William Westcott, urged the judge to release his client on a promise to appear. The judge refused and continued the case to Nov. 26.

“Mr. Mishuk has a completely clear criminal record and has the support of his family,” Westcott said later. “He intends to fully address this matter as it goes along.”

This article was written by Daniel Tepfer and originally published on ctpost