Falls teacher ready to go to trial on sex charge involving student
NIAGARA FALLS — A Niagara Falls High School English teacher accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a 16-year-old student is ready to go to trial on the charges against him, his lawyer said Wednesday.
A trial has been scheduled for next week in City Court and jury selection is to start Wednesday.
Paul C. Chiarella, 39, of Rankin Road, was charged last February with third-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child, both misdemeanors.
He is accused of having an improper relationship with a female student that involved kissing and trying to touch the teen intimately. The girl told police the relationship happened from October 2007 to January 2008.
Chiarella’s attorney, James Faso Jr., has twice tried unsuccessfully to have the charges dismissed. Attorney Joel Daniels is helping with the case, which was to have been tried in September but was delayed due to scheduling problems.
Chiarella is ready to go to trial “and looking forward to putting this behind him,” Faso said. “He wants to go back to teaching, teaching at Niagara Falls High School.”
Chiarella, an eight-year veteran of Falls High who also teaches media arts, has been suspended from his job since shortly after his arrest. District officials have started proceedings to fire him.
There are no plea deals on the table, Faso said, and both sides anticipate a trial that will last one or two days.
Faso said he was unsure if Chiarella would take the stand in his own defense, but Assistant District Attorney Robert Zucco said the girl who accused her teacher will take the stand next week.
The 16-year-old told police and school officials that she ended the relationship because she knew it was wrong. The girl said she never had sex with Chiarella, but City Judge Robert P. Merino ruled that the case should go forward based on the assistant district attorney’s argument that “there was sexual contact even though it was not overt.”
Faso said he was disappointed with that September ruling, but now it was “up to a jury to decide.”
Zucco had said in July as he fought to keep the case from being dismissed that Chiarella was directing the girl in the school play “Of Mice and Men,” and met her in a stage dressing room every day over a five-day period and kissed her every day. He said that one of those days he tried to put his hand up under her blouse.
“It is inappropriate for a school teacher to express his protestations of love, telling her to make a suicide pact, telling her that he loves her, kissing her, attempting sexual touching,” Zucco argued. “All of this is endangerment.”
Chiarella appeared in court alone on Wednesday, remained silent and left quickly. During the summer, he often appeared in court with his wife, Amy, who also teaches at Niagara Falls High School, or his mother at his side.
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