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Trial Set Dec. 1 For Ex-Teacher Accused Of Sex With Student
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Published: September 18, 2008
Lisa Marinelli
NEW PORT RICHEY - A former substitute teacher accused of having sex with a 17-year-old student could face a jury by the end of the year.
Pasco Circuit Judge Thane Covert today set the trial of Lisa Robyn Marinelli on a charge of unlawful sex with a minor for Dec. 1.
Marinelli was arrested by Pasco deputies on March 23 but was released from jail just hours later after posting $20,000 bail.
Investigators say Marinelli, now 41, 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, off State Road 54.
The relationship was discovered Feb. 28, according to affidavits, when the teen's father went to visit him at his workplace and saw his son getting out of Marinelli's back seat, holding his pants together as if he was pulling them up.
The boy's father was in court for the hearing today. Marinelli sat in the back of Courtroom 3A during the hearing with two men by her side.
Marinelli, a wife and mother of two, lives in the Fairway Springs golf community and at first told the boy she was considering him as a suitor for her then 15-year-old daughter, investigators have said. She invited the boy to her home several times, according to authorities, and 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.
Today, Covert also granted prosecutors' motion to compel a DNA sample from Marinelli. She was taken to a back room by a detective and other witnesses looking on to do a swab of cells from her inside cheek. The DNA will be compared to that found on a pair of undergarments the boy has told authorities he got from Marinelli.
Marinelli worked as a substitute teacher at J.W. Mitchell High School, which her daughter attends, but also had worked a couple of days at Seven Springs Middle School before the school district fired her Feb. 29 after administrators learned of the allegations.
If convicted as charged in the second-degree felony, she could face 15 years in prison.
Reporter Lisa A. Davis can be reached at (727) 815-1083 or ldavis@tampatrib.com.
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