Baltimore teacher arrested in sex assault of minor

Police said Lynette Trotta, 33, a science teacher at Archbishop Curley High School, engaged in sexual activity with a student.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore reacted to the arrest. “No child should ever be harmed by an adult, especially if that adult represents a church or church institution,” said Sean Caine, with the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

According to court documents, the school’s principal contacted police after learning of the alleged abuse.

On Thursday, police interviewed the alleged victim who said, sometime in November 2013, Trotta started showing an interest in him while working at a children’s day care center, at which point they started texting and emailing each other on a regular basis. At some point, the emails between the two became sexual, according to the documents.

During December 2013 and last January, the alleged victim reported that Trotta would pull him out of study hall class during regular school hours to spend quality time together in her classroom and on multiple occasions they engaged in kissing and fondling each other in her classroom.

On a separate occasion during December 2013 and last January, the alleged victim left an after-school activity with Trotta without permission from his guardian and while driving him home, Trotta stopped to engage in sexual activity, according to courts documents.

“In this particular case there was a school-related function that brought the two of them together, which is how they met and relationship began to develop from there,” Baltimore City police spokesman Lt. Eric Kowalczyk said.

According to police and charging documents, Trotta had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student at the school that only came to light thanks to a librarian who almost didn’t tell authorities.

The Archdiocese said Trotta was eventually caught after a librarian in the school caught wind of the relationship and first withheld the information, but then told officials.

“We suspended both Ms. Trotta and the school librarian, and now begin our own investigation to find out any other information that might be relative to this case, and certainly whether there are other victims,” Caine said.

In the meantime, the Archdiocese sent a letter home with parents about the relationship and is making sure everyone knows what happened and how to deal with it.

“We are going grade level by grade level in the school today to speak to each class to let them know what happen, to ask them to go speak to their parents about it. We also have eight counselors in the school today,” Caine said.

While police are investigating this as an isolated incident, if parents have concerns about their kids, they can call police or the school.

Trotta was charged with fourth-degree sex offense, sex abuse and sexual solicitation of a minor. She remains in jail Friday on a $250,000 bond.

Source: wbaltv