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from www.mcall.com – A now-resigned Bangor Area High School teacher is charged with having sex with a 17-year-old student on “numerous occasions,” and authorities believe she also had sexual relations with as many as three other students, Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli said Tuesday.

Rachel L. Farrell, 25, was arraigned on three counts of corrupting a minor, a misdemeanor, for allegations involving a boy she was teaching 11th-grade reading.

But Morganelli said she could also face charges involving other 17-year-old male students, if they agree to testify against her as the one teen has.

“This particular case was the case we could bring,” Morganelli said at a news conference. “This may be it. It may be that we just don’t bring [others] for reasons of lack of cooperation from the alleged victims.”

In the single case, the teen, now 18 and out of school, said he and Farrell got to know each other in class and began communicating on Facebook and through phone text messages, according to a sworn affidavit filed by a county detective.

The teen said he and Farrell had sex “numerous times at many different locations,” often after parking in secluded spots, police said. The charges encompass encounters at a Walmart parking lot in Lower Nazareth Township and two visits to a Ramada Inn in Tannersville, Monroe County, where Farrell paid for rooms twice in 2010, police said.

Northampton County marriage records show that Farrell, whose maiden name is Werner, was a newlywed during her alleged relationship with the student. She was married in June 2010, and the police affidavit cites “diverse dates” between August 2010 — the month she is accused of first getting a room at the Ramada — and January 2011 for the trysts.

Farrell, who taught language arts for about three years, resigned from the district in December as the allegations came out, police and school officials said. Police said she confessed to district administrators and a resource officer that she had sex with two 17-year-old students, also later admitting it to county Detective Robert Righi.

Farrell, of 2338 Northwood Ave., Palmer Township, is free on $5,000 bail after appearing before District Judge Joseph Barner. Her defense attorney, Steven Mills, declined to comment Tuesday.

The arrest represents another black eye for Bangor Area, which has been seeking to recover from other scandals involving misbehavior by teachers.

Superintendent Patricia Mulroy said that as soon as the accusations against Farrell were known, she was confronted over them and the matter was turned over to county prosecutors.

“I can’t speculate specifically about what parents should think,” Mulroy said of the new allegations. “But I have to say one of the things about Bangor is that when we hear something, we address it.

“That’s been our track record. We don’t sweep things under the rug. … We want to do things to create a safe learning environment,” she said.

On Dec. 10, 2009, Bangor high school biology teacher Gina Riso fatally overdosed on heroin at a Bethlehem apartment. The man she was with, former teacher’s aide and coach Brad Washburn, admitted to drug possession charges and was subsequently also accused of supplying marijuana, alcohol and strong prescription drugs to students he knew at the school.

Washburn, 31, pleaded guilty last year to four counts of corrupting minors in the second case, and he received nine to 24 months in Northampton County Prison and an additional 18 years of probation. The plea came just a few months after one of the teens he gave drugs to committed suicide at 19.

Also, in 2010, a nude photo of another Bangor teacher’s aide made its way onto student cellphones. District officials sent a recorded phone message asking parents to check their children’s phones for the image and delete it. The female aide was moved from the classroom to an administrative position.

In announcing the charges against Farrell, Morganelli refrained from criticizing school officials, saying cases like hers are examples of “egregious errors of judgment” by those committing the alleged offenses.

Farrell, Morganelli said, “forfeited her career.”

“I don’t think necessarily you can say that the school district is hiring the wrong people,” Morganelli said. “Maybe in hindsight you can say that, but the fact of the matter is that … these people are cleared through numerous hurdles to become teachers. They have to be certified; they have to pass background checks.”

In Pennsylvania, the age of consent begins at 16 years. But corrupting a minor is a broader charge alleging someone “corrupted, or tended to corrupt” the morals of someone under 18.

A teacher having sex with an underage student is “just a line you cannot cross,” Morganelli said. “It’s just not right, it’s wrong and it constitutes a crime under our crimes code.”

In Lehigh County, an Allen High School teacher had sex with a student, who was a week shy of his 18th birthday, on prom weekend last year.

Gabrielle S. Marvelli, 39, was sentenced in December to nine months to five years in state prison, with Judge Maria Dantos saying she had “violated everything that a teacher is supposed to be.”

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