Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Teacher Accused of Sexually Abusing Student Must Move Further from His House | Crime Alert 07.04.25

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Teacher Accused of Sexually Abusing Student Must Move Further from His House | Crime Alert 07.04.25 · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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  Speaker 1: Crime al Art, hourly update, breaking crime news Now. I'm
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  Speaker 1: Sidney Sumner. On Wednesday, an Illinois judge in DuPage County
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  Speaker 1: denied former teacher Christina Formella's request to decrease the distance
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  Speaker 1: she's required to maintain from the student she's accused of
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  Speaker 1: sexually abusing. Formela, thirty, faces fifty five charges, including criminal
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  Speaker 1: sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual abuse, in decent solicitation of
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  Speaker 1: a child, and grooming. Prosecutors say she engaged in sexual
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  Speaker 1: relations with the student over fifty times, with at least
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  Speaker 1: forty five incidents occurring at Downers Grove South High School,
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  Speaker 1: where she worked as a special education teacher. Last month,
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  Speaker 1: Judge Mia McPherson denied the prosecution's request to keep Formla
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  Speaker 1: behind bars until trial. However, the judge did impose several
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  Speaker 1: conditions for her release, including GPS monitoring, which prevents Formella
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  Speaker 1: from coming within five thousand feet of the alleged victim's school,
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  Speaker 1: residence or place of employment. Formela's defense attorney, Todd Pugh,
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  Speaker 1: requested the distance be reduced to twenty five hundred feet,
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  Speaker 1: arguing that Formla's home falls within the exclusionary zone. Since June,
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  Speaker 1: Formila has been living at her parents five hundred and
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  Speaker 1: sixty thousand dollars home on a golf course, which is
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  Speaker 1: reportedly within a mile of where the teen works. McPherson
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  Speaker 1: denied the defense's request and said she's keeping the teen's
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  Speaker 1: protection in mind. Body Can captured Formella's clear confusion as
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  Speaker 1: she was arrested on March sixteenth in the driveway of
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  Speaker 1: the home she shared with her husband as they returned
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  Speaker 1: from running errands together. Am I in trouble, like I'm
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  Speaker 1: so lost right now? I'm right now for investigation, bringing
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  Speaker 1: in that Fifi and once you get this. Formella then
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  Speaker 1: broke down in tears after hearing the charges against her.
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  Speaker 1: What police said the sexual assault began during a January
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty three tutoring session inside a classroom with the
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  Speaker 1: defendant and the fifteen year old student. The abuse reportedly
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  Speaker 1: continued for more than a year. The student ultimately ended
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  Speaker 1: the relationship in September twenty twenty four. Formila is also
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  Speaker 1: accused of sending texts that appeared grooming in nature.
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  Speaker 2: I love you so much, baby. I love you so
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  Speaker 2: so much, mama. Even though this morning was short, it
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  Speaker 2: was perfect, I know, baby. It was perfect, baby, so perfect.
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  Speaker 2: I love having sex with you. I know, baby, I
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  Speaker 2: love it so much. It feels so good, it's so passionate,
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  Speaker 2: it's so intimate, it's so perfect.
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  Speaker 1: Formla's husband, Michael, accompanied her to the hearing and appeared
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  Speaker 1: to be supportive, holding her hand and smiling at her
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  Speaker 1: as they waited for the hearing to begin. Formela has
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  Speaker 1: pleaded not guilty to the charges. She's due back in
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  Speaker 1: court on August fourth. More crime and justice news After this,
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  Speaker 1: a Florida teen was arrested after he threatened to shoot
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  Speaker 1: up a Polk County McDonald's over a botched order. Dayton Schaeffer, eighteen,
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  Speaker 1: told police when he he was arrested that his three
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  Speaker 1: separate calls threatening to shoot this shit up last week
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  Speaker 1: were just a joke. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd used
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  Speaker 1: every McDonald's pun in the book announcing the arrest.
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  Speaker 3: This McNutt didn't get his McNuggets from McDonald's, so he
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  Speaker 3: used his mcphone to make a mcthreat his actual phone number.
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  Speaker 3: So it was a slow mcpitch for us to make
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  Speaker 3: a mcrest. Anyway, he's in the mcjail. Oh, the Polk County.
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  Speaker 1: Jail employees called police at about one am Wednesday. They
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  Speaker 1: were so concerned they locked up the restaurant until they
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  Speaker 1: gotten all clear from police. Shaeffer admitted to making the
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  Speaker 1: calls because the fast food restaurant didn't put chicken McNuggets
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  Speaker 1: in his five dollars meal. He was charged with making
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  Speaker 1: a false report concerning use of a firearm against persons
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  Speaker 1: in misuse of a two way communication device. Judd said
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  Speaker 1: that the manager told Schaffer when he called he'd given
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  Speaker 1: the nuggets if he returned, but Schaeffer responded with more
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  Speaker 1: vulgarities and threats. Schaeffer is being held without bond with
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  Speaker 1: an August fifth court date. An Oklahoma pediatrician is behind
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  Speaker 1: bars after police say she killed her daughter last month
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  Speaker 1: during a Florida vacation. Doctor Neha Gupta is charged with
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  Speaker 1: first degree murder in connection with her daughter, Aria Talaf's death.
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  Speaker 1: Miami Dade Police stated the incident happened June twenty seventh
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  Speaker 1: at an el Portal Airbnb rental. Gupta told police that
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  Speaker 1: Aria drowned while swimming in a pool, but investigators believed
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  Speaker 1: that Gupta intentionally killed the child. Gupta told investigators that
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  Speaker 1: she woke up to a noise at three twenty am,
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  Speaker 1: then discovered a sliding glass door had been opened. She
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  Speaker 1: claimed she went outside and discovered her daughter in the pool.
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  Speaker 1: Gupta called police and said she didn't know how to
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  Speaker 1: swim to retrieve Aria. When first responders arrived at the
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  Speaker 1: rental home, they found the victim unresponsive before performing CPR.
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  Speaker 1: Aria was then rushed to an area hospital, where she
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  Speaker 1: was pronounced dead. An autopsy on June twenty ninth indicated
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  Speaker 1: that Aria had no water in her life, ungs, or stomach,
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  Speaker 1: but had cuts inside her mouth and bruising inside her cheeks.
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  Speaker 1: Doctor said that the injuries were consistent with asphyxiation by smothering.
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  Speaker 1: The child's father and Gupta's former husband, Doctor Sarab Telaffi,
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  Speaker 1: was in Oklahoma at the time. Gupta and Taalafe went
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  Speaker 1: through tumultuous divorce proceedings that lasted two years. A judge
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  Speaker 1: reportedly denied her fight for sole custody. She was also
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  Speaker 1: ordered to pay hefty attorney's fees totaling over seventy nine
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  Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Talafi didn't know that the pair had traveled
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  Speaker 1: out of state. Gupta's defense attorney Richard Cooper said that
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  Speaker 1: the arrest warrant against her was flimsy. In another statement,
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  Speaker 1: Cooper claimed police acted hastily, adding that the toxicology report
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  Speaker 1: had not yet been provided. Gupta traveled back to Oklahoma
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  Speaker 1: after the incident. She is awaiting extradition back to Florida.
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  Speaker 1: For the latest crime and justice breaking news, be sure
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  Speaker 1: to follow the Crime Alert hourly update on your favorite
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  Speaker 1: podcast app with this crime Alert, I'm Sidney Sumner.