A 54-year-old Florida high school teacher has died from an apparent suicide while awaiting his sexual misconduct trial in relation to a 16-year-old student, according to a report Tuesday.
Charles Maglio was a math teacher at Wellington Community High School when he was arrested last month after being caught professing his love to the girl in a call monitored by police, the Palm Beach Post reported. He was found dead by a self-inflicted gunshot wound on October 1 near his Coral Springs home, the Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office said.
According to the local outlet, law enforcement began to look into the teacher last December when a restaurant manager reported him to his principal for sending flowers to a teen employee. A school district detective opened an investigation and then notified the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office.
When interviewed by investigators, the teen girl described multiple sexual encounters with Maglio at his apartment, and said she’d kept clothes and a toothbrush at his home.
Detectives then set up a monitored phone call between Maglio and the student, in which the teacher told her he loved her and said he could not wait for her to turn 18, according to his arrest report.
Cory Strolla, the attorney defending Maglio for the two felony sexual misconduct charges he was hit with after being arrested in September, said his client self-surrendered to the sheriff’s office and self-reported the matter to the school district.
When his body was found, a firearm was recovered from the scene as well as a note from his room, officials said.
After his death, Strolla said the late teacher’s “family, friends and many of his past students were saddened by the tragic loss of his life.” Strolla said:
This firm was going to vigorously defend the allegations against Charlie. Sadly, nobody wins in this case, but everyone involved loses.
According to an affidavit cited by Local 10, the girl contacted Maglio “and gave him a heads up about a possible investigation.”
“She said she deleted all their text messages and was sure he did the same,” the affidavit stated.
The teen reportedly said, “I don’t want him to get in trouble. I’m in love with him.”
According to the affidavit, the victim started to visit the teacher in his classroom after school, looking for “a mentor fatherly figure, but it escalated.”
The Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office has since dropped the charges against Maglio, who had been released on $10,000 bail.
As reported by the New York Post, Maglio was hired in January 2016 to teach math at Wellington Landings Middle School, and then transferred to the high school for the 2020 school year. He had also previously taught at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County, the site of the infamously tragic Valentine’s Day mass shooting in 2018.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.