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Text Messages Between Teacher, Teen Surface

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By TODD LESKANIC | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 5, 2008

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• Special Report: Sex In Our Schools

  Lisa Marinelli

NEW PORT RICHEY - Three text messages sent from a former substitute teacher to the 17-year-old student she's accused of having sex with surfaced in court documents Thursday.

Lisa Robyn Marinelli, 40, sent the messages to the boy Feb. 26 and 27, nearly a month before Pasco County sheriff's investigators arrested her on charges of unlawful sex with a minor. The crime is a second-degree felony punishable by as much as 15 years in prison.

Marinelli has pleaded not guilty.

On Feb. 26, documents show, Marinelli messaged the boy: "Ur car looks awesome! Al u need is a hot mom sittin next u and ud really b in business."

The next afternoon, she sent a text asking the boy, "How about a quickie 2 morrow afternoon?"

Seven minutes later, she wrote, "U can meet me at home at 3. Real men only need 20 min! We will be alone cause there is a field trip."

When Marinelli was arrested, investigators said the boy's phone contained 35 text messages from the former teacher. The boy's father also gave detectives documentation of hundreds of cell phone calls.

The text messages appear in affidavits for search warrants to Sprint and T-Mobile signed by Circuit Judge Thane Covert on May 19.

The warrants ask the companies to produce records of phone communications between Marinelli and the boy from December through April. According to the affidavits, investigators "cannot obtain said text messages directly from the cell phones as text messages have either been erased, are not complete, or are not otherwise available."

Investigators said Marinelli had sex with the boy about 10 times between Jan. 12 and Feb. 27. Most of the encounters took place in the teacher's 2007 Chrysler 300 in or near the Longleaf subdivision.

Marinelli, a wife and mother of two, lives in the Fairway Springs golf community. Authorities have said she invited the boy to her home several times. On one occasion, she told him to leave the house and meet her down the street, where they kissed and fondled each other in his car, according to investigators.

During that encounter, Marinelli told the boy she shouldn't be "doing this" and kept repeating, "This is bad," according to the affidavit.

Sheriff's investigators began looking into the case Feb. 29, two days after the boy's father saw his son pulling up his pants as he got out of Marinelli's vehicle. Marinelli, who worked mostly at J.W. Mitchell High School, was fired immediately after school officials learned of the allegations.

She was arrested March 24 but has been free since posting $20,000 bail the same day. A pretrial conference in her case is scheduled for today.

Reporter Todd Leskanic can be reached at (352) 521-3156 or tleskanic@tampatrib.com.

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