Philadelphia- A hearing for a former Philadelphia middle school teacher charged with seducing one of her students last year was postponed in Family Court yesterday.
Maria Garre, 34, who now lives in Frederick, Md., was arrested here in May and charged with having sex with a 15-year-old Jones Middle School student. Police said Garre, a former Center City resident, also allowed another boy from the Kensington school to stay in her home for several months last year.
She is charged with kidnapping, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, corrupting a minor, and related offenses.
Her attorney vigorously disputed all allegations after the postponed hearing.
“Maria Garre did absolutely nothing wrong,” said the lawyer, Larry Krasner, responding to claims that his client had improper sex with the 15-year-old boy and harbored a 13-year-old runaway in her home.
Both boys are being held in city juvenile facilities.
“No good deed goes unpunished in the city of Philadelphia,” Krasner said, adding that Garre actually sought to help her students in any way she could.
“She is an extremely well-intentioned teacher and had no sexual involvement at all,” Krasner said.
R. Seth Williams, an attorney representing the family of the 15-year-old, could not be reached last night.
Krasner called the sex allegations “a complete, absolute, total fabrication.”
Judge Joseph Bruno postponed Garre’s preliminary hearing in order to consider legal and constitutional issues related to the case. He scheduled an Aug. 5 hearing on those matters.
Back Story:-July 21, 2004 – This was a day in court for a schoolteacher facing sex charges involving two students.
Former Philadelphia school teacher Marie Garre remains free on bail tonight. Her first hearing on child molestation and other charges are postponed until next month. Garre, age 33, is accused of having sex with one of her middle school students and plying him and a friend with alcohol and marijuana. But her lawyer says she’s victim here.
But prosecutors say Garre took 2 troubled middle school students into her Center City apartment to live back in the spring of 2003. The older boy, then 14, had been a student of hers at Jones Middle School. Outside court today, the older boy’s family called Garre a predator.
But Garre’s attorney says she is being railroaded by overzealous prosecutors who are being duped by troubled teenagers.
At Garre’s next hearing scheduled for August the 5th, her 2 youthful accusers will be called to testify.