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Author: Vinny Vella

Ex-Delco official convicted of indecent assault, harassment for treatment of two female subordinates

Tim Boyce, the former director of Emergency Services for Delaware County, was convicted Friday of assaulting and harassing two of his female employees.

Boyce, 63, was charged with indecent assault, simple assault, and harassment in 2024, after his former executive assistant told police he grabbed her buttocks and forcibly tried to kiss her.

Weeks later, a second set of charges was filed when another woman Boyce hired and worked with for years, said he showed her pictures of his penis, lifted up her skirt to look at her genitals and once muted a Zoom call she was part of to ask her graphic questions about sexual positions she preferred.

After about nine hours of deliberation, jurors convicted Boyce of all but one count, the simple assault charge.

Boyce was taken into custody after the verdict was read and the judge set his bail at 10% of $50,000. He will be sentenced in December.

His attorney, Andrew Edelberg, said afterward that he was disappointed with the verdict, but respected the jury‘s decision.

County officials fired Boyce shortly before the criminal charges were filed, after the first woman filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

In his closing arguments, Edelberg told jurors that the case against his client was “botched, bungled, fumbled, messed up” by investigators who failed to find evidence corroborating the women’s allegations.

He accused prosecutors of attempting to play on jurors’ emotions with the testimony of the two women, who he said offered unreliable testimony.

“The Commonwealth wants so badly to convict Mr. Boyce, they’re desperately clinging to this story,” he said.

The women’s true intention was money, he said, referring to potential settlements from lawsuits they both have filed against the county.

But Deputy Attorney General Madelyn Abry, in her closing arguments, warned jurors not to be distracted by what she described as “filibustering by the defense.”

“Mr. Boyce is upset, he’s sad, he was devastated because he was caught, because his actions have finally caught up with him,” she said. “And they did so because of these two brave women.”

Abry told the jurors Boyce chose his victims intentionally: Both women were single mothers at the time, desperate for better-paying jobs that would provide health benefits for their families.

Boyce took the stand during the trial and vigorously denied the women’s allegations.

“I’m not making excuses because I have nothing to excuse myself for,” he said, calling the second woman’s assertions “absolutely a lie.”

He became emotional under questioning by Edelberg, saying that he checked into a rehab facility in Arizona for treatment of suicidal ideation, and later sought treatment from a second facility in Pennsylvania.

Edelberg, in his closing arguments, described Boyce as a hero who helped recover bodies from Ground Zero during the Sept. 11 attacks, and who once saved three children from a burning building as an Upper Darby firefighter.

He noted that the second woman remained friendly with Boyce after the first alleged assault, which was in 2018. And she later invited him to her wedding, he said.

“Why would you include a man who tells you these horrible, dirty jokes … and not tell anybody?” he asked jurors. “It’s the same theme, ladies and gentlemen: excuse after excuse.”

During her testimony, the woman said she waited to report the first assault, and endured the subsequent ones, because of Boyce’s authority.

“I’m nobody,” she said. “He’s the director in charge of all 911.”

The first woman testified that she sent Boyce a text message after the assault, telling him he had degraded her and made her feel like a piece of meat.

Boyce responded to that text, saying he was “sorry and not making excuses,” according to a copy of that text exchange displayed in court.

When pressed by Abry about that text, Boyce, while denying the assault, said he apologized because he believed the woman was drunk while she was texting him and attempting to “set him up.”

Abry noted that Boyce had a history of lying, and of flouting county employment guidelines: For six years, she said, he engaged in a consensual sexual relationship with another employee, one he admitted he hid from his wife and children.

The assaults on the two victims, Abry said, took place after that relationship ended in 2023.

October 2, 2026
Nearly 50 Montgomery County businesses face drug charges for selling illegal THC products, DA says

Montgomery County prosecutors announced felony drug charges Wednesday against nearly 50 businesses that they say illegally sold powerful THC products, the latest effort in an ongoing crackdown against smoke shops selling unregulated drugs.

District Attorney Kevin Steele said 46 retailers — including shops, gas stations, and corner stores throughout the county in towns including Haverford, Pottstown, and Narberth — ignored warnings from his office that some of the products on their shelves were illegal to sell in Pennsylvania outside of a medical marijuana dispensary.

“I think folks thought we were blowing smoke, for lack of a better way to say this, about the things that were coming if they didn’t abide,” Steele said. “They haven’t abided, and so … they are facing felony possession with intent to deliver charges.”

The crackdown comes about a year after Steele’s office issued a scathing grand jury report on the proliferation of smoke shops selling illegal THC products. The 107-page report was influenced in part by an Inquirer investigation that found some over-the-counter products were not legal at all — and often rife with harmful contaminants.

The Inquirer began testing over-the-counter THC products in the spring of 2025, at a time when Pennsylvania law enforcement showed little interest in examining the products sold openly at smoke shops.

But enforcement has risen steadily as storefronts multiply across the region — outnumbering schools in Montgomery County, according to Steele. The shops also peddle an array of other potentially dangerous products, from ultra-addictive 7-OH kratom pills masquerading as health supplements to unregulated psychedelic drugs baked into chocolate bars.

Shops attempt to sell these supposedly legal THC products through a legal loophole set by the 2018 U.S. Farm Bill, which allows hemp-derived products to be sold if they contain minuscule amounts of Delta-9 THC.

However, the vapes, gummies, and other items sold in the shops investigated by his office were potent, and had enough THC in them to be intoxicating, according to the prosecutor. Some, he said, contained as much as 2,000 mg of THC and were sold in colorful packaging that seemed to target children.

These gummies, which contain an amount of THC illegal to sell outside of a medical marijuana dispensary, were allegedly sold at Eagleville Smoke Shop, according to Montgomery County prosecutors.Montgomery County District Attorney's Office

The charges were not filed against individual owners, but against the businesses themselves, Steele said. Penalties can range from fines to the revocation of business licenses.

If necessary, Steele added, his office could file more serious charges, including racketeering, against individual owners.

He stressed, however, that his efforts are not “anti-business.”

“What we’re trying to do here today is to get businesses operating in Montgomery County to comply with the law, because we care about kids and public safety in our community,” he said.

Steele’s office sent warning letters to vape shops across the county in December after releasing the grand jury report.

The letters warned the shops’ owners that the sale of high-THC products was illegal, and asked them to check their inventory and remove any offending products from their shelves.

Follow-up checks by investigators in subsequent months found that 46 of them were still selling the products, triggering the criminal charges.

“I had hoped when we did the grand jury report and put people on notice that would be enough,” Steele said. “It was not.”

Last year’s grand jury report was the product of a joint investigation with prosecutors in Bucks and Chester Counties. It found many stores used “misleading packaging and fraudulent lab reports” to openly sell banned substances across all three counties, and called for greater enforcement of store operators who “knowingly violate the law.”

Nearly 300 stores selling hemp operate in Montgomery County, outnumbering schools, according to the report, a reality it described as “a public health crisis unfolding in plain sight.”

The report’s findings referenced the 2025 Inquirer investigation that found samples of these products purchased from different stores in the Philadelphia region exceeded the 0.3% Delta-9 THC potency level cited in the Farm Bill, making them illegal to sell in Pennsylvania.

Those items contained Delta-9 THC at levels from 200% to more than 2,400% over the federal limit. Six samples, strengthened by other hemp-derived THC variants, were as potent as most dispensary-grade marijuana.

The Inquirer also found that some companies deceived consumers about what was in their products by digitally altering lab results to remove evidence of contamination. Seven of the samples tested by The Inquirer contained a potentially harmful fungus. Three contained pesticides, including one illegal chemical.

Owners of some of the stores investigated by Montgomery County in 2025 told detectives they removed illegal products from their shelves after The Inquirer’s investigation was published that July, according to the grand jury report.

“We are trying to address this for the sake of the children in our community, for the sake of the public who is misinformed about what these items are, and to deface myths that are out there that if a store is selling something like that, it must not be harmful,” Steele said. “That is not the case.”

Staff writer Max Marin contributed to this article.

October 1, 2026
The Philly man charged with stabbing another driver during a road-rage dispute in Lower Merion will face a county judge

After being boxed in by two cars, rear-ended by a U-Haul truck, and punched in the face through his car’s open window, a man driving to Philadelphia on I-76 said he heard Samuel Marquez say a few words that filled him with dread.

“Go get my knife.”

The man testified Tuesday at Marquez’s preliminary hearing that, fearing for his life, he crawled out the window of his damaged Mercedes-Benz and called 911 from a median on the Blue Route in Lower Merion after taking the exit from I-76.

And while trying to read the license plate of one of the vehicles involved in the four-car crash Sept. 6, the man said, he felt a blow to his side. At first, he said, he thought Marquez had punched him. Then he saw the blood.

Marquez, 40, of Kensington, was held for trial on charges of aggravated assault and related crimes in the alleged road-rage stabbing, which left the victim with a 2-inch wound to his lower abdomen, as well as a shallow slash to his left arm.

Marquez’s attorney, Andrew Levin, said afterward that, given the chaotic nature of the fight on the highway, it was unclear who held the knife that stabbed the victim: The melee involved Marquez, as well as his nephew, his girlfriend, and another male relative.

“You have multiple vehicles involved, and what I believe is a mutual physical altercation,” Levin said. “It’s clear that the complaining witness got stabbed. I don’t think it’s clear by who.”

Assistant District Attorney Robert George said the evidence was clear that Marquez was the one holding the knife, which investigators later recovered, still covered in the victim’s blood, from behind a Sunoco where he parked the U-Haul.

That truck was part of a caravan of vehicles, including a Toyota Sienna minivan and an Acura SUV, whose drivers were heading to Philadelphia to help Marquez move to the city from Reading, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.

During the trip, a minivan driven by Marquez’s girlfriend had engine trouble, and the group pulled onto the highway’s shoulder to fix it, the affidavit said.

When they merged back onto the road, they cut closely in front of a Mercedes-Benz, the driver of which told police he honked his horn and drove around the group.

The man testified Tuesday that Marquez was driving aggressively, veering into his lane and gesturing at him as he drove. The other vehicles connected to Marquez tried to pass him, he said, but he did not allow them to do so. He also brake-checked the U-Haul to get it off his tail.

“Wouldn’t you, if you thought something bad was going to happen?” the man testified.

Eventually, the man took the exit onto a ramp connecting I-76 with I-476, known as the Blue Route. As he did so, the U-Haul intentionally rammed his vehicle, while the minivan and SUV drove past and stopped in front of him, he said.

The fight, and eventual stabbing, broke out afterward, and Marquez fled in the U-Haul.

He was later arrested at Memorial Park in Bryn Mawr. The knife police believe he used in the stabbing was found nearby.

At the time of the highway stabbing, Marquez had an active arrest warrant out of Delaware County in connection with the gunpoint robbery of a Royal Farms gas station in Upper Chichester in November 2022.

In that case, Marquez plotted the robbery with Elizabeth Serrano, his girlfriend, who worked at the store as a cashier, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.

Serrano pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery and a related crime in 2024, and served a year in county jail, court records show.

Marquez remained in custody in the road-rage case with bail set at $1 million. He will be arraigned in Montgomery County Court in November.

September 29, 2026
A Delco firefighter was sentenced to house arrest for calling a woman the N-word during an argument

A former assistant volunteer fire chief in Delaware County was sentenced Monday to 23 months of restrictive probation for calling a Black woman the N-word during what he described as a “road rage encounter” in 2024.

John Romano, 48, must serve the first seven months of his sentence on house arrest, according to a ruling from Judge Margaret Amoroso. He also must undergo anger management and racial sensitivity training, and have no further contact with the victim.

Amoroso convicted Romano earlier this year of ethnic intimidation, terroristic threats, and related crimes during a bench trial.

During Monday’s proceeding, First Assistant District Attorney Kristin Kemp asked the judge to send Romano to jail for up to two years.

“I don’t doubt he’s a racist,” the judge said. “But being a racist, in and of itself, is not a crime.”

Amoroso said she was focusing more on threats Romano made to the victim, which included taking a picture of her license plate and telling her he would “take care” of her at her home.

Delco officials condemn hatred as firefighter accused of yelling racist slurs faces criminal charges. Here’s what you need to know.

Romano, the former assistant fire chief of the Sharon Hill Fire Company, encountered the woman on Hook Road in Darby Township in November 2024, while he was using a forklift to unload Christmas trees. His forklift was blocking the road, the woman testified at trial, causing a traffic jam of irritated drivers who were honking their horns.

After the car in front of hers squeezed through a small gap near the forklift, the woman said, Romano got out of the forklift and “rushed” to her passenger window. Romano then called her the N-word. He later told Darby Township officers who responded to her 911 call that she was “a wild animal” and said he was “tired of dealing with them,” according to body camera footage played in court.

In a statement to the judge, Romano said Monday that he never intended to threaten the driver, and expressed frustration that he was “being prosecuted over words.” He took a photo of her license plate, he said, because she struck his forklift and he was afraid she would drive off without exchanging insurance information.

Kemp, the prosecutor, said Monday that Romano had demonstrated a pattern of violent, bullying behavior throughout his life, including an arrest in 2006 for ethnic intimidation in a similar incident and a 2013 gun-possession conviction for which he spent two years in state prison.

“This isn’t someone who had a bad day and mouthed off about his beliefs,” Kemp said. “This is someone who seeks others out to put them in fear, whether with a weapon or his hands.”

Romano’s attorney, Christopher Boggs, said the case had been blown out of proportion.

“I have never understood the level of attention this case received,” he said.

Unlike other people charged with ethnic intimidation, Romano had made no effort to “hunt or stalk” someone, Boggs said, drawing comparisons to crosses burned on Black families’ lawns.

Two people close to Romano spoke on his behalf, saying, despite his strong personality, he is dedicated to his community through his volunteer firefighting, as well as other service he’s provided during floods and snow storms.

But Amoroso made her feelings clear.

“Maybe you’re a great guy to the people who don’t piss you off,” she told Romano. “But you’re a bully, and that’s what you did: You threatened [the victim] for pissing you off.”

September 28, 2026
An ex-Delco official is on trial, accused of sexually harassing two of his female subordinates

When Tim Boyce grabbed his executive assistant’s buttocks in 2024, she said Monday, she wasn’t sure how to report the incident to authorities in Delaware County.

“The director of all emergency services, all 911, just assaulted me and made me feel the worst I had ever felt in my life,” the woman said at the start of Boyce’s trial on charges of indecent assault and harassment involving two of his former employees.

“I didn’t know who to trust at that point,” she said, adding that she later told Boyce, then the head of county’s department Department of Emergency Services, his behavior had made her feel disgusting and “like a piece of meat.”

Boyce was fired in May 2024, not long after the woman filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in which she also said he grabbed her cheeks and attempted to pull her in for a kiss.

Criminal charges followed soon after that incident, along with allegations that Boyce had assaulted and harassed another female employee, who told investigators that Boyce showed her pictures of his penis, pulled up her skirt, and asked her if she enjoyed a particular sex act.

In court Monday, Deputy Attorney General Madelyn Abry told jurors Boyce was confident that because of his position of authority, no one would find out about his actions.

“What she thought she was getting was a job that would help her,” Abry said of the first victim. “But what she got was a job that was too good to be true.”

Abry said the woman left her office on the day of the assault and never came back, resigning in a text exchange with Boyce in which he apologized to her.

Boyce’s attorney, Andrew Edelberg, denied those assertions, telling jurors “there is not a single piece of corroborating evidence anywhere” supporting the charges against him.

No one else witnessed the alleged assaults, he said, and the two women waited several months before reporting them to police.

He described Boyce as a 40-year public servant, starting as an Upper Darby firefighter who “ran into burning buildings to save children.”

The allegations, he said, came at a time when Democrats had come to power in the longtime GOP stronghold of Delaware County, and Boyce, a Republican, was “low-hanging fruit” for them to target.

Edelberg also suggested that former District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer, who, at the time the women came forward was running for attorney general saw the case as a way to boost his campaign. Stollsteimer lost his bid for that office and is now a county judge.

“This case is about power, politics, and punishment, because of an administration change, and because someone was running for office and couldn’t look weak on TV,” he said. “And what else? Money, money, money.”

Both women have filed civil suits against Boyce and the county, and Edelberg said they were motivated, in part, by potential monetary settlements.

Boyce’s trial is expected to last through Friday before Delaware County Court Judge Stephanie Klein.

September 28, 2026
A Montgomery County elementary school teacher sexually assaulted three teens, including a former student, DA says

A Montgomery County elementary school teacher and wrestling coach sexually assaulted three boys he encountered online, including one of his former students, prosecutors said Saturday.

Jason Theodore, 54, began the assaults in 2019, plying the boys with marijuana and alcohol before forcing them to perform sex acts on him, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.

He told one of the victims, then 14, “I love how tiny you are,” police said.

Theodore, of Upper Gwynedd, has been charged with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, statutory sexual assault, unlawful contact with a minor, and related crimes.

He remained in custody, denied bail. There was no indication he had hired an attorney.

For years, Theodore worked as a physical education teacher at Montgomery Township Elementary and a wrestling coach at Pennbrook Middle School, both in the North Penn School District, according to prosecutors.

In a statement, North Penn School District Superintendent Todd M. Bauer said that Theodore was placed on administrative leave after district officials were notified by Upper Gwynedd police about their investigation into his alleged behavior.

North Penn is cooperating with police, and Bauer said counselors are available to students.

The investigation into Theodore began Sept. 9, when one of the victims filed a police report saying Theodore had sexually assaulted him starting in 2019, when he was 13 years old, the affidavit said.

The boy was 17 when they last had contact in 2022. He told police that he befriended Theodore through Snapchat, and that Theodore had used a pseudonym and lied about his age, portraying himself to be much younger.

From 2019 to 2022, Theodore repeatedly sexually assaulted him, sometimes recording the encounters. On one occasion, Theodore pressured him into having sexual contact with another teen, the affidavit said.

That second teen later told police he met Theodore in a chat room in 2020 when he was 16 and later began messaging him on Snapchat. When the two finally met up, the teen recognized Theodore immediately as his former teacher and wrestling coach, and realized Theodore had sought him out after seeing him in the chat room.

Like the first teen, the second teen said Theodore sexually assaulted him, and in his case continued to do so after he became an adult. He told police he “felt coerced and groomed by Theodore, resulting in long lasting embarrassment and shame about the physicality between him and Theodore,” the affidavit said.

The third victim said he met Theodore when he was 14, in 2020, and that Theodore sexually assaulted him on three occasions, usually in Theodore’s vehicle.

In an interview with police, Theodore admitted that he was attracted to “younger males,” but denied being involved with anyone underage, the affidavit said.

When an officer mentioned the first victim’s name, Theodore became flushed and hid his face, but said he didn’t know the person the officer was referring to, the affidavit said.

Theodore is scheduled to appear before a district judge for a preliminary hearing on Thursday.

September 27, 2026
Two officers in Cape May County fatally shot a man threatening a woman with a knife, AG says

Two police officers in Middle Township, Cape May County, shot and killed a man who was threatening a woman with a knife Friday, officials said Saturday.

New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said in a statement that the two officers, whom she did not identify, encountered a disabled car on Route 9 near Satt Boulevard in Middle Township just before 10:30 Friday morning.

As the officers approached the vehicle, they heard screaming from within it, and forced their way inside to see a man “holding a knife” against a female passenger, according to the statement.

Both officers shot at the man, killing him. Neither the man nor the victim was named by authorities.

The victim was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment of minor stab wounds.

The Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office had announced an investigation into the shooting on Thursday, but had said only that it involved police.

As with any fatal encounter with police, the case will be submitted to a grand jury for investigation, Davenport said.

September 26, 2026
Ahead of Sunday’s final day, families brave the rain to protest academy closure

For Christine Anderson, visiting the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University is a family tradition. And she wanted to continue that ritual one last time Saturday.

As a kid growing up in the Lehigh Valley, Anderson made frequent trips to the country’s oldest natural history museum. As a mother, she brought her daughter Krissy, now 21, to the museum to make her own childhood memories.

And on Saturday, the penultimate day of the museum’s operation before its planned closure due to a lack of funding, Anderson and her family squeezed in their final trip.

If for no other reason, she said, than to give her 5-month-old daughter, Lola, the chance to cross through its threshold.

“It’s a great place for kids to learn, and I think it’s great for the culture of the city,” Anderson said. “At a time when so many other museums are closing, or at risk of closing, it’s just so disappointing that a space like this is closing with them.”

Anderson and her family were among the dozens of attendees who braved Saturday’s blustery nor’easter to fill the Academy of Natural Science’s halls. The museum’s entry line snaked down the sidewalk along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, flanked by protesters from the Save the Academy Coalition who were rallying in support of the beloved institution.

People from across the Philadelphia region, and beyond, came to the Academy of Natural Sciences on Saturday as protestors called for Drexel to keep the museum open.Tyger Williams / Staff Photographer

Sarah McAnulty, one of the organizers, said the demonstration was intended to stress that the museum’s life isn’t over “until the doors are closed and the exhibits are dismantled.”

“It is of critical importance that we make sure the people who are making the decisions with the future of the Academy of Natural Sciences know that the city of Philadelphia needs this museum to stay open and the volume of support that we have for that effort,” said McAnulty, a science educator who runs the nonprofit Skype a Scientist.

To bolster that effort, the coalition hosted a letter-writing station for kids, hoping to send that message directly to Drexel officials. They also offered animal face painting and a free concert. Volunteers stood on the shoulder of the Parkway, their protest signs greeted by enthusiastic honks from passing drivers.

“It’s hard to know whether your kid is going to be inspired by science and become a scientist later,” McAnulty said. “And so whether they want to start their journey with science to become a scientist or just to see things that humans have been studying and collecting for thousands of years, this is a huge place for Philadelphia history and inspiration for kids.”

William Penn Foundation offers funding to keep Academy of Natural Sciences museum open

Drexel and the academy announced the museum’s closure Sept. 1, after nearly 200 years of operation, with Sunday being the final day its collection will be open to the public. The decision, officials said, came amid declining attendance and economic pressures, with a hope of concentrating resources on continuing the academy’s research.

Late Friday, the William Penn Foundation announced it had offered funding to keep the public museum open for a least a year to allow Drexel to address its economic issues. Drexel officials have yet to say whether they will accept that offer.

There are plenty of Philadelphians who hope the university will consider the deal. Among them is Dan Solomon, who spent a rain-soaked Saturday holding a protest sign in support of a museum that played an impactful role in his family’s life.

Penny Hughes, 3, of East Falls, gets her face painted by volunteers from the Save the Academy Coalition during their protest Saturday.Tyger Williams / Staff Photographer

Solomon said his daughter is applying to colleges this year, and her pursuit of a career in neuroscience was inspired, in part, by their frequent visits to the Academy of Natural Sciences.

“It’s just unconscionable that this would be just ripped away from Philly kids forever,” Solomon, of Mount Airy, said. “All it needs is a chance. We’ve had a month to organize [since the closing was announced] and we’ve already gathered plenty of support.”

Solomon urged Drexel to take the William Penn Foundation’s offer.

“Of course people understand that times are tough,” he said. “But all we’re asking for is a chance to save our museum. And if we have that chance, we should take it.”

Kevin Chapman, who was standing in line alongside Christine Anderson, his partner, and their newborn daughter, agreed.

“Museums provide a foundation for education, and I feel like there’s a lot of things that provide foundations for education that are under attack right now in our country, whether it’s historical venues or sciences and art,” he said. “We need to support those things while they’re here, because it’ll be too late once they’re gone.”

September 26, 2026
A Baltimore middle school teacher traveled to Chester County to sexually assault a teenage boy, DA says

A Baltimore public school teacher regularly traveled to Parkesburg for the better part of two years to sexually assault a teenage boy he met online, Chester County prosecutors said Friday.

Rogie Legaspi, 56, sometimes took the boy out of school to assault him, unbeknownst to his parents, and also forced him to have sex with another man in what District Attorney Chris de Barrena-Sarobe described as “the pinnacle definition of child sex trafficking.”

“Teachers have a special place in our society. We trust them not only to watch our children when we send them to school, but to mold them,” de Barrena-Sarobe said at a news conference Friday. “To teach them life lessons, not just math problems. And this defendant, this man, shattered that trust.”

Legaspi has been charged with child trafficking, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, statutory sexual assault, and related crimes.

He remained in custody in lieu of $5 million bail. He is being represented by the county Public Defender’s Office, which declined to comment on his case.

Legaspi has been employed by the Baltimore the Baltimore City Public School District since 2008, and most recently taught seventh grade science at Hamilton Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore.

In a letter sent to parents last week, Hamilton principal Natasha Pouncey said Legaspi has been placed on administrative leave, and that there were no allegations that his criminal conduct involved a student in the district.

Days before Legaspi’s arrest on Sept. 18, several concerned parents asked the district why he had not shown up to school, unaware that he had been taken into custody two states away.

Investigators in Chester County learned of the alleged abuse in June after a report was filed on behalf of the 15-year-old victim through the state Department of Human Services’ ChildLine system.

In an interview with county detectives, the boy said he befriended Legaspi through social media, and they exchanged cellphone numbers, according to the affidavit of probable cause for the teacher’s arrest.

Legaspi began driving up to Chester County twice a month starting in 2024, when the boy was 13.

During those visits, the affidavit said, Legaspi would fondle the boy and force him to have sex.

Legaspi paid the boy $50 or $100 to “act like he enjoyed it,” the document said, and he often filmed the sexual encounters and send the footage to the boy.

Authorities said the sexual assaults took place in Legaspi’s car, as well as various hotels in Chester and Lancaster Counties.

During one of those assaults, in December, Legaspi coerced the boy to have sex with another man at the Comfort Inn in Gap, and filmed the encounter, the affidavit said. He also pressured the boy to have sex with other men, according to the affidavit.

In announcing the charges Friday, de Barrena-Sarobe underscored the importance for parents to monitor their children’s social media usage.

“You are giving the world access to your child when you give them a phone or you let them have a social media profile,” he said. “And so, you need to restrict the world’s access to your children, and you need to make sure that you are instilling that value in your child from an early age.”

Legaspi is scheduled to appear before a district judge for a preliminary hearing Oct. 19.

September 25, 2026
A Delco man was convicted of first-degree murder in the stabbing death of an Upper Darby teen

It took a Delaware County jury about 30 minutes Thursday to convict a Clifton Heights man of first-degree murder in a random, unprovoked stabbing that killed a 15-year-old boy as he was walking home.

Marson Weh, 39, was also convicted of possession of an instrument of crime in the April 2023 death of Michael Garr, a sophomore at Upper Darby High School.

Weh will be sentenced in November to life in prison for stabbing Gar 11 times, including once in the throat, according to District Attorney Tanner Rouse.

The two were strangers, Rouse said, and had “no earthly connection.” The DA said Weh offered no motive for the stabbing.

Michael Garr was killed in April 2023 as he walked to his home in Upper Darby.Handout

A passerby, Ian Coughlan, tried to help Garr, but his injuries were too severe, and he died of cardiac arrest before medics could arrive.

The prosecutor said the case would make the “worst episode of Dateline,” one without any twists and leaves no room for alternate theories or interpretation.

No one else was near Garr that night, he said, as Weh was seen “hunting, stalking” the teenager for more than a mile.

When Weh was arrested, he was still wearing parts of his “kill suit,” nondescript clothing that included thermal underwear stained with Garr’s blood, Rouse said. And he was still carrying the murder weapon, a folding knife that matched the dimensions of Garr’s fatal wounds and still had his dried blood caked in its handle.

“See this for what it is,” Rouse said. “Because when you only consider the blood on his pants, the blood on his knife, that alone proves he is guilty. There is no other explanation, no reasonable doubt.”

After the killing, investigators quickly identified Weh through surveillance footage, which recorded him following Garr for more than a mile. Gradually, prosecutors said, he closed the distance between them, and attacked Garr as they approached Brunswick Avenue near Bridge Street in Drexel Hill.

Weh’s attorney, Ian McCurdy, conceded in his closing arguments that it would “strain credulity” to say there wasn’t evidence to prove that Weh killed Garr.

Still, he urged jurors to consider that prosecutors had failed to explain his intent in doing so.

“As horrible as this situation is, the death of a young man killed way too early his life, this boils down to did the Commonwealth prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said

McCurdy supported his contention by citing a two-minute window of time where neither Garr nor Weh were recorded on surveillance video.

“The point is we just don’t know what happened in that small bit of time,” he said. “And that’s why I suggest to you the Commonwealth hasn’t proven that Marson Weh killed Michael Garr with malice.”

In responding to McCurdy’s theory of the case, Rouse, the district attorney, did not mince words: The evidence that Weh intentionally killed Garr, a crime that constitutes first-degree murder, he said, is overwhelming.

Beyond that, he said, Weh confessed to killing Garr during an interview with detectives. And he showed what Rouse described as a consciousness of guilt by soaking the hoodie and he gloves he wore on the night of the attack in ammonia — detectives found the items in that condition when they searched his home days later.

Rouse urged the jurors to convict Weh of first-degree murder, likening doing so to parents protecting their children from the evils of the world.

“There is simply no getting around the evidence,” he said. “You cannot stab someone in the throat and not mean it.

“That kid had no chance.”

September 24, 2026