Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 'Good Looking' Teacher Accused of Sex Crimes with Teen Tries To Duck Cameras

Episode Date: August 4, 2025

Christina Formella, the former special education teacher and soccer coach accused of dozens of sex crimes involving a teenage boy, sneaked in the back door of the courthouse for a court appearance in DuPage County Monday. Formella is accused of grooming the teenage boy and having sex with him more than 50 times over two years in Downers Grove, Illinois. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy has details from Formella's court appearance and case with TikToker Abby Blabby in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code CRIMEFIX at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: http://incogni.com/crimefixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Abby Blabby https://www.tiktok.com/@abbylynn0715?_t=ZP-8ybHgADCVpO&_r=1Producer:Jordan ChaconCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts or Spotify. A teacher in Florida is in hot water with the cops. She's accused of having sex with a female student and then trying to use another student to cover it up. I go through the skin crawling allegations being made against Molly Mercereau and how she ended up on the sheriff's radar.

Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjana Levy. Molly Mercereau seemed to have everything going for her. She was a teacher at Golf Breeze High School in Florida's Panhandle. And years ago, when she was in college, she was a soccer standout. But now she's on her way to losing her teaching job. After being charged with crimes related to allegations, she was having a relationship with a female student. And there are a couple of twists in this case that might leave you shaking your head. So wait for all of that. Now the criminal investigation into Molly Mercero

started last month on July 8th. A friend of Mercero's actually called police and told them that Mercero had told her that she was having sex with a female student. So one of her friends turned her in. So that is something police would take very seriously, especially when it comes from a friend. The local police department turned the

investigation over to the Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office. So, sheriff's detectives, they began investigating right away and they found out something that was very concerning. Molly Mercereau and this student had been investigated by the school district last school year because there were concerns the two were too close. The warrant for the arrest says the investigation was made in response to reports that the child was riding in Molly's vehicle during school trips, spending time in her vehicle in the morning before school, and exhibiting other various behaviors deemed unusual or imprudent for the child.

During the internal investigation, several individuals, including Molly and the child, provided written statements that, among other things, admitted that Molly frequently texted the child and other students from her personally owned cell phone, which was a violation of school policy, and had given the child rides in her personally owned vehicle. Now, all of these things are huge, huge, huge red flags. Kids should not spend that much time with a teacher and they shouldn't be texting with a teacher on their personal phone.

It's completely inappropriate. Detectives went to the student's home and found some notes in her bedroom. The warrant for the arrest says that these notes were numbered to count down the days until, and that part of the report is redacted. The report goes on to state, these notes appeared to match known samples

of Molly's handwriting. Some of these notes were hidden in a hollowed out, hardback copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The child's family member also located a hidden iPad that they did not purchase for the child. I want to give a big shout out to Odoo for sponsoring today's Law and Crime YouTube take located a hidden iPad that they did not purchase for the child. I want to give a big shout out to Odoo for sponsoring today's Law and Crime YouTube Takeover.

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that shows her with some younger people. And it looks like they were riding a Harry Potter themed ride at Universal Studios. The warrant for Molly Mercereau's arrest shows they seized devices from her home and detectives said they found evidence that she was talking with this student that she was having the relationship with on Discord. And there's more. But first, I want to bring in Chief Deputy Randy Tift of the Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office in Florida. His agency investigated this case. So Chief Deputy Tift, tell me a little bit about how you became involved in this case. It sounds like a tip really broke it wide open. Yeah, a crime stoppers tip went into Gulf Breeze Police Department, which is a local

police department in our county, in the south end of the county. Once they received that tip that came in, they contacted our criminal investigative division and we assigned an investigator to look into that tip. The tip came in as if there was a teacher that was possibly involved with a student inappropriately. So we started the investigation. The investigators jumped on it very quickly because it's a serious allegation. And at the conclusion of that, we served a search warrant on the teacher's house and

contacted the parents of the minor, which were very cooperative, very helpful in this investigation, and found evidence that there was a relationship that started by this teacher. You know, what's interesting to me in reading through the documents is the fact that this had been investigated. There were some suspicions about an inappropriate relationship last school year between this particular student and Molly Mercerow. So obviously something didn't go right or something was missed with this investigation conducted by the school.

I thought you weren't a part of that, but obviously, you know, where there's smoke, there's often fire and there was definitely, it appears, some fire here. Yeah, as soon as we were made aware of it, we investigated and put an investigator on it. We weren't advised of anything prior to that, anything that occurred in any allegations. We're the only tip that came in from Gulf Rees when we got involved in it. That's the only involvement we had and we followed through with that investigation. And I see some references to a lot of grooming behavior alleged, your detectives that Molly Mercerow engaged

in with this child. You know, very intimate text messages. So that electronic evidence, I would assume, is going to be very valuable in your investigation. Yes, all the evidence we obtained there and it will be used by the state attorney for the prosecution of this case. It is very disturbing that we have a teacher that would get involved and it's illegal. She went way across the line and getting involved with a student and her actions were very inappropriate. So all the evidence we gathered will help in the prosecution of this case by the state attorneys. Are you concerned at all about the victim cooperating in this case? Because you know, sometimes is the victim reluctant in this case to cooperate or is the victim cooperating?

Well, at this point, we've done our investigation. We've established the evidence for the criminal charge. Our investigators, unless there's something else comes up from the state attorney's office and request to our investigators, we're done with that part of it, unless there's something else that is learned by the state attorney's office. All that communication between the victim will be with the state attorney's office during the prosecution phase and not the sheriff's office. We've done our part. We've investigated. We've established the evidence.

We went forward with the criminal charges against Molly and all of that now is with the state attorney's office. Are you concerned at all that there may be more victims out there or do you think that this is Molly Mercerow and this one child? At this point in our investigation, we were only aware of the one victim. If there are more, we're not aware of it at this point or we would be continuing an additional investigation. But what we found during this investigation, the evidence leads us to believe that this was the her only victim at this time. We're not aware of any other ones. Well, the allegations are really, really disturbing. I'm glad that you guys followed through with that tip, obviously. Anything else you'd like to add?

No, that's it. It's a horrible situation when an adult takes advantage of a minor child like this. It's horrific. And we take it very serious. Our school board takes it very serious. We jumped on this investigation as soon as we learned

at the tip and I'm glad that it turned out like it did. We were able to press charges and arrest her from the criminal charges and so at this point I think we're in good shape as far as her and the prosecution state attorney has a strong case. Now the warrant states that the student denied having a sexual relationship with Molly Mercero when she was interviewed by police and told detectives the love notes came from an ex-girlfriend from her freshman year. The student also refused to comment on the hidden iPad, according to detectives, and

detectives are indicating that Mercero may have enlisted the help of another student to help cover up this relationship and to thwart the police investigation. So I want to bring in Mark Weaver. He has prosecuted teachers for sex crimes in the past and so he has a lot of experience in this area. You know, first I want to get your just general take on this case, Mark. You know, we've got notes, we've got love notes, we've got a hidden iPad, a burner phone. I mean, this thing is, it's got a lot of tentacles.

Yeah, most Americans want their kids to be involved in youth sports. My kids were, I was a youth athlete, and we trust that the coaches and the teachers at the school will look out for our kids. From these allegations, which are very troubling, this woman, this teacher and coach appears to have targeted this young girl for sexual grooming, but not just by words and, you know, deeds when she's around her, but to have hidden burner phones, which is what we expect drug dealers to use,

or a secret iPad in this child's life. And the notion that the child has initially denied it suggests that she has bought into her groomer, her coaches, her teachers, sexual advances. So as a parent and as a prosecutor, this is a very offensive case to me. And I think that the, you know, there are allegations at this point in time, she's innocent until proven guilty. I do want to say that. But there are some very concerning things in this arrest warrant. And, you know, the victim was not cooperative. I don't think

that's uncommon. You know, she's trying to hide this. She's protective of Molly. She's not going to disclose this, you know, oh, an ex-girlfriend wrote those notes. But this gets really concerning to me because in my view and in my reading of the documents, it appears that a friend of this student was dragged into this potentially and enlisted by Molly to help thwart the investigation and to cover it up and to cover up the relationship. You know, it says on 7-18-2025, they made contact with Namor Dactd and she disclosed that she had known Molly and the victim to be in a romantic relationship with one another since some unknown time before February or March, 2025. So it's been going on, you know, for a while.

Since that time, she had secretly visited Molly's residence a handful of times with the victim and recalled that on at least one occasion, Molly gave the victim a hickey. And the victim stated that on either 714 or 715, Molly solicited her assistance in continuing with her illicit romantic relationship with the victim by smuggling a burner phone that Molly purchased for the victim since the victim's devices had been seized as evidence. My God. I mean, that's like diabolical. I mean, you're under criminal investigation. And so,

yeah, let's get a student to take a burner phone to a victim of a sex crime so they can still communicate. Your thoughts on that? It will be up to the prosecutor, but that other student now has criminal problems because she may have been involved in a criminal conspiracy to either to obstruct justice, to conceal evidence, or to further this inappropriate sexual relationship. So that student now has a serious problem. I don't imagine that the prosecutor is going to focus directly on that student. Perhaps that student can be a witness and not have to be prosecuted for it. But anybody, adult or teenager, who knows about an illegal relationship like this has an obligation to not further it and certainly ought to report it. But the more we learn about

this, there's a, use the word diabolical, that's a pretty good adjective here. Having worked these cases, I know that teachers and coaches who want to sexually prey on children often cover up their tracks, but knowing that you're being potentially investigated because devices have been taken and then continuing to try to communicate shows an extra level of criminal activity and evil, frankly, that we don't always see. I want to continue with this because you mentioned potential legal problems for this other student, and they talk about that in here. They say that she basically did smuggle in the burner phone, this other student. And so she said that they said that she smuggled the cell phone to the victim and perjured herself during an earlier interview to cover for Molly and the victim acting on intel provided

by the victim. I was able to coordinate with, I'm assuming the parents, this is all redacted, and recover the burner phone, which was found in the victim's possession and matched the make and model of the Android device seized from Molly. So, I mean, they've got a lot of dots connected here, Mark. You know, I'm assuming as a prosecutor, though, you're going to, like, instead of, you know, getting this girl into trouble for possible obstruction or something like that,

you're going to flip her and use her as a cooperating witness. And then, you know, eventually this victim is going to come to her senses through some counseling and with some talking with her parents and become a cooperating witness as well. Yes, that's what we hope for. The student who was the go between as a prosecutor, she would not be a primary target for me other than to persuade her to become a witness on behalf of the state. The victim in this case is a troubled child.

Her psyche has been co-opted by this sexual predator. We see a lot of this in teachers and coaches who spend too much alone time with their students or their athletes. I wanted, when my son and daughter were for young athletes, I wanted the coaches to mentor them, but not in a one-on-one, not in a private setting. There's evidence in the arrest report

of the child being in the private car of this teacher, one-on-one. Occasionally that happening, that might have to happen. Couldn't get a ride home from practice or something. So there's nothing inherently troubled about one, but consistent alone time between an adult teacher, a coach, and a teenage child is a red flag that every parent should pay attention to.

Most definitely. And that brings me to something about this investigation conducted by the school. There was an internal investigation this past school year. Now we're in the summer months. So this became a criminal investigation thanks to the Crime Stoppers Tip. But the school investigated, they were concerned. They believed she was spending too much time with this student. And so somebody had to have said something. And so, you know, we don't we don't have all the ins and outs of what happened there. But you have

to assume that maybe they said, well, we did our due diligence. We looked into this. We have written statements from both the victim and the student and Molly. We don't have any concrete evidence of an inappropriate relationship other than she's texting with her on her personal phone.

She shouldn't be. I mean, but these were huge red flags. I mean, a teacher should not be spending that much time with a student. It's just totally inappropriate. It is. I have worked with school districts in these sort of situations and most of them were completely unaware that their teacher or their coach was acting in a criminal fashion against a child. But in a minority of cases, you see school districts covering up or downplaying information they had about this teacher or this coach. That's the real scandal. Not that it happened in a school district. If the school just didn't know about it, that's typically not their fault. It's when they had reason to believe there was a problem, what actions were taken. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a civil lawsuit by the parents of this child victim against

that school district. And during the discovery process, the exchange of information that happens before trial, we may learn a lot more about what that school district knew about this teacher. Well, now we have the burner phone. I want to jump back to the burner phone really quickly. The digital evidence included text messages and group notes shared or exchanged by Molly and the victim, which were of an intimate nature, text messages, exhibiting grooming speech from Molly directed toward the victim, photographs of Molly and the victim on outings outside of school, and text messages exchanged between Molly and the victim and the other student about evading further encroachments by this criminal investigation.

So there's a lot there. There's a lot of there there. I'm just kind of curious as to why, you know, the parents, yeah, they may have a civil case against the school district, but why were the parents permitting this? I mean, maybe they're kind of like, oh, well, she was a great mentor to her. They thought, you know, they didn't suspect it was like anything inappropriate. But as a parent, you have to really know where your kid is. I mean, you know, my mom always told me when I was younger, you know, you're my child. You don't really have a right to privacy.

Like, I mean, it's just like how she was and I think it's probably a pretty good policy Your mom sounds like my kind of mom. She sounds like a good mom there This every parent needs to remember this in the age of cell phones We have allowed the outside world into the most private spaces of your child And so prudent parents are aware of what their kids are doing on the phone. Prudent parents have all the passwords and the ability to pick up the phone at any time and see what's happening. Now as kids get older on their way off to college they're gonna have to

be adults and be more responsible. But when they're still in junior high school or high school it is the parents obligation to know what's happening on these devices and more and more we're seeing sextortion, we're seeing predators taking advantage and grooming these kids, and that's how we wind up with cases like this. Yeah, I just think even if your kid has a phone, you should be like looking at that phone, looking at that phone and knowing who they're talking to. I agree. Certainly, we want kids to develop independence, but in this very vulnerable time, 13, 14, 15, 16 are the most vulnerable years in most people's lives. And for a teacher and a coach to allegedly have intruded upon that and groomed this child to the point where she's sticking up for the predator, she's helping deny the allegations. It's a grooming mindset. It's a brainwashing mindset. And it shows you how vulnerable these students are and how, to use your previous word, diabolical, some of these predators are.

Yeah, it's horrific. It's really disturbing and really awful stuff. Mark Weaver, thank you so much. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Molly Mercereau is now free on bail and she's facing several charges, including that felony charge and some misdemeanors. That's it for this episode of Crime Fix.

I'm Ann Janette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time. MUSIC