Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Married Teacher Arrested for Having Sex with Teen Boy in Classroom: Cops

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

A high school soccer coach and special education teacher, Christina Formella, 30, is accused of having sex with a 15-year-old boy she tutored in December 2023. The DuPage County State's Attorney said the incident happened in Formella's classroom before school started. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy goes through what police said they found on Formella's phone in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you or someone you know have been diagnosed with bladder cancer or other cancers after prolonged exposure of hair color, visit https://forthepeople.com/hair to submit a claim in 8 clicks or less!Host:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guests: Dan Schorr https://x.com/danschorrJonna Spilbor https://www.instagram.com/jonna_spilbor/CRIME 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 soccer coach and teacher in Illinois accused of having sex with a student in her classroom. I lay out the allegations against Christina Formella and how police were tipped to the investigation. I'm Anjanette Levy, and this is Crime Fix. Really quick, before we get into this case about the teacher, I want to tell you about a new channel we're starting right here at Law & Crime. It's called Scandal.

It's a place where we look into all of the wildest crimes happening in Hollywood and expose the darker sides of fame. Click the link in the description and subscribe to stay up to date on all of the latest celebrity scandals. Now back to this case involving teacher Christina Formella. It really seems like nearly every other week there's another story about a teacher being accused of having sex with a student. And over the last year or so, there are so many that have come up in the news that are women. A lot of them are younger women. This time, I'm telling you about a teacher named Christina Formella. She's a 30-year-old special education teacher and soccer coach from Downers Grove, Illinois.

That's less than an hour west of Chicago. And now she's on paid administrative leave after being charged with two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse and criminal sexual assault. Records show she's been licensed as a teacher since 2017 when she was 23. Shortly after graduating from college, Downers Grove police started investigating Formella last Saturday morning when a now 17-year-old boy and his mother filed a report saying Formella had sex with the boy when he was 15 in December of 2023. Now, how did the mom find out? Well, police say her son's cell phone broke, so she ordered him a new one. And when she went to sign into the iCloud account, a bunch of messages from an unnamed account started to pop up.

And I'm going to warn you, these are graphic. The woman's son wrote in one, I love you so, so much, mama. The unknown number texted back. I love you so much, baby. Even though this morning was short, it was perfect. The teen messaged back. I know, baby. It was perfect, baby. So perfect. The unknown number then texted. I love having sex with you. The teen responded.

I know, baby. I love it so much. It feels so good. It's so passionate. It's so intimate. It's so perfect. Can you imagine you're a parent and you're setting up your kid's new phone and this pops up on it? Court documents say the mom confronted her son and he told his mom that that was Christina's number, his soccer coach, and that they began flirting and had sex in her classroom once. According to the teen, he and the defendant had developed feelings for each other. This is all according to court documents. The teen said that one morning in December of 2023, before school, he had met up with defendant in her classroom. The teen said that defendant had closed her door, which automatically locked, that they had started kissing, that he had grabbed her butt and she had grabbed his private parts

over the clothes, that she had removed his pants and underwear, that they had removed her leggings, and that they had engaged in sexual intercourse while standing up. The prosecutor said the teen told them that he and Formella had sex just that one time when she was tutoring him. Police went to talk to Formella on Sunday, and they said she allowed them to look through her phone. And in the notes section, they found something in which she'd accused the teenage boy of cheating on her with his girlfriend. The officers said Formella wrote, I'm not upset. I'm not mad. I'm not any of that. I've just lost interest. I went back and screenshotted every single time that I said we should break up until after the wedding and after you graduated. And every single effing time you came back and convinced me it would be fine. I initiated every single breakup only for you to end things saying you couldn't get over it.

You ruined us. I warned you we should have never started dating a long, long, long effing me ago. And you gaslit me and convinced me it was fine every single time because that's who you are. We will never, ever be together again. I'm not a second choice. I'm the best thing you'll ever have, even with all of my mistakes. You once again waited and strung me along until it was convenient for you. It broke me last time. This time it changed me.

I'm not sad. I'm effing mad that I let a 16-year-old F-word with me like that. And I made a promise to myself that I never will let any guy F-word with me like that again. Now on social media, it appears that Christina Formella married her husband last August. Police said there was a section in Formella's notes entitled manifestations that read, the teen is going to reach out to me soon and try to fix things between us. In the meantime, I'm going to live my best life knowing he's not the person I thought he was and that he is beneath me. This is a Morgan & Morgan legal alert. Emerging reports reveal that hair color products may not come with clear

warnings about potential health risks. If you or someone you know frequently handles hair color chemicals and have been diagnosed with bladder cancer or other cancers, Morgan & Morgan is here to fight on your behalf. Scan the QR code on your screen or go to forthepeople.com slash hair to start a claim now. Police said they found another note in Formella's phone from November of 2024 that read, the teen and I will connect again soon in a positive way. We will both get the closure we need in order to move on in a healthy way. We will be able to be a part of each other's lives forever. We will be in each other's lives forever. We will be able to love each other

while also living our own lives. Prosecutors say detectives interviewed Christina Formella and that she denied having sex with the teenage boy. And she said everyone comes after her because she's good looking and she cared too much about the teenage boy. When detectives confronted Formella about the notes in her phone, prosecutors said she claimed they were an outlet for her anxiety, which was brought on by this teenage boy. But in the same breath, they said that Formella admitted her relationship with the boy was wrong, but she couldn't stop it because she cared too much about him. Detectives said Christina Formella had referred to the boy as a stalker and that her husband knew about this. But when they asked her husband about the boy, he only knew about boy as a stalker and that her husband knew about this. But when they asked her husband about the boy, he only knew about him as a soccer player. Christina Formella

attended Concordia University in Chicago years ago before becoming a teacher. She played soccer there. She and her husband were married last summer, as I mentioned. Prosecutors had wanted her to remain in jail, but she was released and told she could not go to the school grounds and she's on paid administrative leave. She also can't have contact with the accuser in this case. I want to bring in Dan Shore. He is a former sex crimes prosecutor, and he's also the author of a new book coming out August 12th called Open Bar. And it's actually about a similar situation that we're discussing today about a coach having sex with a student, a player. So, Dan, thanks for coming on. I want your gut first reaction

after reading the petition for detention. As a former sex crimes prosecutor, I want to know what you think about this case. Well, one thing is, unfortunately, this is not uncommon. It's always shocking as newsworthy when a situation like this is learned about. But I've been prosecuting and investigating sexual misconduct cases for 25 years and I've seen many cases of teachers, other people in authority, having sexual relationships with underage people, both boys and girls. It's extremely disturbing. It's very hurtful to the students. There's also a lot of electronic evidence, according to law enforcement here, communications, writings on the teacher's phone. So obviously, the teacher will have a chance to contest those in court. But it seems that at least law enforcement saying there's a lot of corroboration. It's not just the word of the student. There's a lot of electronic communication that seems consistent with the sexual relationship that's alleged. Now, every time I do one of these cases, I cover one of these cases. There's always going to be

somebody in the comments that says there's this like jocular kind of thing going on where somebody's like, oh, where was she when I was in high school, you know, or something like that. And, you know, people may say that with this case because the text messages that are cited in this complaint, in this petition, talk about this guy, this kid, basically liking this and enjoying it. I love you, mama, and how great this was, et cetera. And she's saying in her notes, allegedly, about how he strung her along. And she's making it sound like he was the one calling the shots. But that's not, according to law enforcement,

the power dynamic here. She's the teacher. She's the 28 year old. But then you're going to have people who say, well, it takes two to tango, whether he was 15 or not. Can you please respond to all of that? Sure. And those are great points to raise. I've seen that throughout my career, whenever there's a teacher who's female and a student underage, who's male, there's a lot of reaction in society. You see this in the media. I see this with people I talk with where it's like, oh, that's great for

him. He must have enjoyed that. There's this concept that, well, if he's a boy, he must have wanted sex and it's harmless as opposed to if there's a 15-year-old girl who's a student and a male teacher, then everyone's horrified and condemns that. I have seen a lot of movement, fortunately, over my career where I think we're beginning to recognize as a society that a male student is preyed upon in these situations. They do have serious psychological impacts from these experiences that they are a victim under the law that they're not able to consent. And the teacher in general in these situations is in a position of power and control and often they use that to manipulate somebody. So law enforcement more and more is taking these

situations seriously. But as you talked about, I definitely see in society, in the media, there is unfortunately people aren't taking it seriously if there's a male victim as opposed to a female victim in these cases. Fortunately, that's changing to some extent, but not enough. When we read through the petition, one thing that struck me was the fact that the prosecutor said that Christina Formella tried to say, you know, everybody comes after me. I'm cute, so I'm a target. You know, that to me almost sounds like the mean girl's defense, like all the other girls are jealous of me, so they come after me. Have you ever experienced that with somebody kind of using that to try to get out of trouble?

I've heard that kind of theme, but ultimately that kind of argument isn't going to resonate. And I don't think it's a serious argument that's going to be put forward by this defendant. She might have said it to law enforcement. But ultimately, this is a strict liability crime, which means that if they had any kind of sexual interactions while the student is underage, it is illegal. It is sexual misconduct. It is rape. So it doesn't matter who came after who. The 15-year-old is by law not capable of consent. So the question is going to be, did they have any kind of sexual interactions? And if so, was he underage? He was certainly underage. And there's a lot of text messages to corroborate that there was some kind of sexual interaction, although she's innocent

until proven guilty. But it's going to come down to whether or not law enforcement can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they did have some type of sexual relationship while he was underage. It doesn't matter whether someone came after her for a motive or not. It's whether or not they had sexual intercourse or other sexual conduct while he was underage. Let's play devil's advocate here for just a moment. I mean, let's say for just a moment, and she's the adult here. She's the 28-year-old in this scenario. But let's play devil's advocate and say that the 15 year old kid, the soccer player was, you know, putting the moves on and was the aggressor,

if you will. He, you know, let's look at it from that perspective. As a teacher, I mean, you have kind of the obligation to say, hey, you're a kid. This is weird. And go to the administration, I would assume, and put a stop to this and say, there's something going on here. And then you shouldn't be like attracted. I mean, there's a problem if you're attracted to a 15 year old boy, right? Right. And that's not going to be a serious legal defense. Maybe they might put that forward if there's a conviction to try to mitigate the sentence. But again, let's go back to what you said before about the gender issue here. If it was a male teacher who is 28 and a female student who is 15, we would never say, well, she came on to him. So it was justified that he had sex with her,

right? That wouldn't even be a thought. But I know in society with it's more excused if they think the 15 year old boy was the aggressor and therefore he got what he wanted. And therefore it's less of a crime. That's not legally a defense, but I understand in society that concept sometimes resonates with Mabel. When you read through the notes in her phone that the prosecutor said they recovered and she's saying, you know, this is an outlet for anxiety and things of that nature. As a former prosecutor, what did those notes say to you? Right. So the notes clearly are consistent with a sexual relationship with this student. And they're pretty long notes. They're not just minor comments. They're really details about their relationship. And she needs to had had a relationship with another girl and she was jealous

of that or felt that he was betraying her with that. That also seems consistent with her having a sexual relationship with him. She's saying that she did feel that he had betrayed her, but that it wasn't because they had had sex. So, that's going to be a tough thing for her to explain, but a defendant in a criminal case does not have a burden of proof. They don't have to explain anything as long as they can show there's a reasonable doubt that she had sexual relations with this student. But those text messages, those notes on her phone really corroborate the allegations here. So it's going to be tough for the defendant to explain that in a way that's more innocent. Yeah. Also, they said they found screen grabs of this kid's Instagram with his shirt off on her phone.

Yikes, Dan. You know, I just can't even imagine the mother of this kid. I mean, I'm a mom. I can't imagine. I mean, if I found that on my kid's phone, it'd be hot. She did the right thing going right to the cops. Right. And the way the mother found out about it was there was a new device that was purchased and she was helped log in to the new device. And she saw these messages and then found the other information. And many, many, many of these cases with underage students having sex

with teachers, they are reported because a parent or guardian or some other person in position of authority finds out about it and reports it. And often that adds another complication to these cases that the student themselves is often a reluctant person coming forward to law enforcement and that may affect what they tell the police, how they tell it, whether they're cooperative if it goes to trial, because often they're not the ones reporting it, as is the case here. We're going to keep an eye on this one. It's sad and interesting, but very sad. Thank you so much, Dan Shore. Thank you. It's always great to talk with you. You too. I want to turn now to Jonna Spilbor. She is a criminal defense attorney in New York State. Jonna, I know you've got a lot to say about this case. The allegations here are really disturbing. We have a 30 year old woman who was 28 when this happened and a 15 year old boy. So a lot going on with this case, sex in the classroom. And then it sounds like we have a 28 year old woman who is having a lot of problems and issues letting go.

Oh, my. Yeah, that's almost that's one of the toughest things to swallow about this case. Look, none of these cases are are easy. And historically, we have looked like this isn't the first time we've seen this type of, you know, victim perpetrator, right? Mary Kay Letourneau was a very famous one. Deborah LaFave, if you remember that case, another famous sort of teacher-student dynamic going on. This one, I have a lot of questions because the defendant in this case, first of all, first of all, can we just say, I don't care what you're accused of. Why do defendants talk to the police? Like she did a lot of talking. She did a lot of explaining about her notes and her, you know, various reasons why the contact that she was having with this child, like she didn't need to do that. But it gives us a big insight into her mental disease.

I mean, Ann Jeanette, what else can we call it? Like, she is not, nobody who engages in this kind of relationship is right in the head. But she's got all these weird kind of explanations for everything, and it just does not serve her well. Mentally, something is extremely off. Well, not only did she do a lot of talking and explaining, she also just let the cops look at her phone, according to what the prosecutor wrote in the petition for detention,

which was denied. She was released. So it sounds like she allowed them to look through her phone. They start looking through her phone and then they find all of these notes. And she's talking about this kid a lot in her notes. And it sounds like at least from what we're reading in the notes that they cite, that she's accusing this kid of cheating on her with his high school girlfriend i mean he's a kid um who has a high school girlfriend and she's a grown-up in a position of power and i trust yikes i mean there's this is the psychology of this that i don't i don't quite understand and that that's what these cases typically boil down to. Right. This is a psychological component to this form of pedophilia. And it makes me beg this question. Right. have the exact statistics, but like typically when we cover these cases, what are we covering? We're covering an adult female teacher, right? Engaging in sexual relations with a teenage male

victim. So that is something that's almost to me, a subset of the broader umbrella of pedophilia. There's got to be a common denominator. If we dug into all of the similar cases historically, we dug in, what do all these perpetrators have in common somewhere underneath? They must have something, some psychological issue that was brewing for a long time. I don't believe any of these women, including this defendant, I don't think they wake up one day and go, oh, you know what? I think I'm going to have sex with one of my teenage students. I don't think that's the case. Something is slow burning under the surface. And why can't we figure out what that is before these people are put in a position to abuse their power? Shouldn't that be next? I mean, how many more kids got to get abused

before we figure that out? This is the interesting thing to me, what you just brought up. The prosecutor is saying, the state's attorney is saying that this happened in December of 2023 and that it was only discovered because mom gets her kid a new iPhone and she starts hooking this thing up and logs into the cloud or whatever and sees these text messages. And I can't even imagine as a mom, I'm like looking and I'm like, what is this? Like, and you're like, you start grilling your kid and you know, your kid is not going to be able to hide any of this from mom. He's going to crumble and eventually tell mom he's going to have to fess up. And then this comes to light. I mean, you're telling me this happened once, you know, and these are all allegations at this point. She is innocent until proven guilty. I do want to say that. But this happened once. And she's been a teacher since 2017 in the state of Illinois. She's been registered. She's been a coach, a soccer coach. And this happened once. This was the only time. So it makes me wonder, is there more? Did this happen possibly before? It makes me question that. And what is

going on? Like, how can we better screen these teachers? And are we hiring teachers that are maybe like too young? And I hate to say that because you have to start somewhere. But it's like these are younger women who are around younger guys. And same thing with younger male teachers around younger female students. You know, you would think at this point we have tests for a lot of things we have aptitude tests right you figure out what you're supposed to be good at we have other psychological tests we have um forensic people who do evaluations on clients for example all the time you would think that you would when you have these kind of positions of power that that would be part of the interview process. You have to submit to a test to make sure that we're not hiring a pedophile in disguise, because like I said, it doesn't happen overnight.

And when you read, and if anybody digs into this case and they read her notes, to me, that's as disturbing. She's treating this teenage student as if they had been in some adult long term relationship. And, you know, she's got to give him a dressing down because he aggravated her and she's the best thing that's ever happened to him. And like, what is going on in your brain? So that really and if she's going to be defended, that's going to be part of it. Like some sort of trauma that this person suffered. But again, it's not just her. Historically, we see this dynamic over and over. There's got to be a way to stop the madness, but we haven't figured that out yet, apparently. One thing

that kind of bothered me was that she said, you know, everybody, according to what the prosecutor wrote, everybody comes after me because I'm cute. I'm pretty. So so I'm a target. I was like, oh, my goodness. Like, this is like a bad TV show. It seemed I mean, she she obviously felt like according to what they're trying to portray in this document, that she was in a bind and she was trying to pull every trick out of the book to to help herself that's what it comes across as and that's why and again just technically speaking when somebody is being accused of any crime especially an anus crime you know shut up and i don't say that flippantly i say that i mean you have a constitutional right not to be a witness against yourself. You have a constitutional right to remain silent. And people don't understand that that is usually a good idea unless you are a narcissist who's in denial about your own mental health. on about a teenage boy whom she had authority over. Like there's some, this is just a huge problem.

And again, we don't really get the opportunity to get a glimpse into this person's childhood, for example, or, you know, her own teenage years or what was her psychological background. They probably don't even ask those questions. Maybe they're not allowed to ask those questions when you're hiring a teacher in at any level, but especially in the younger, you know, grade school, we should really be digging into as a society a little bit more. People often look at Ann Jeanette like, and I've seen this too. Sometimes people will make comments like, well, you know, he was a teenage boy and he had sex. What's the big deal? person that teenager is having sex with, even if it were an age appropriate sexual relationship, which this wasn't, the psychological manipulation is problematic. Yeah, it definitely is. And this was not an age appropriate relationship. Thank you so much, Johnna Spilbor. Appreciate your time as always. You always have the great cases, Ann Jeanette, and the great analysis.

Thank you for having me. All right. Thank you. The state attorney for DuPage County issued a statement on social media. It says the allegations against Ms. Formella are extremely disturbing. It is alleged that she used her position of trust and authority as a tutor and a coach to sexually assault a minor student. The type of abuse and behavior alleged in this case will not be tolerated.

I thank the Downers Grove Police Department for their efforts on this case and authorities at Downers Grove South High School for their cooperation in this matter. I also thank the DuPage County Children's Center, as well as Assistant State's Attorney Jacqueline McAndrew, for her work not only in this case, but for their continued efforts protecting our children. And the DuPage Herald quoted an email the principal of Downers Grove South High School sent to parents. It read, We are devastated and our community is reeling. An adult has been charged with the most serious of violations and trust has been broken. Our team is here to support students

who are impacted by this terrible news. Christina Formella is scheduled to be back in court next month. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.