3rd Pennsylvania teacher gets stiffest student-sex term
PITTSBURGH (AP) – A third former teacher from the same Western Pennsylvania school district received the stiffest prison sentence of the three after pleading guilty to having sex with a female student.
Thirty-year-old Michael Cinefra, of Verona, was sentenced to three to six years in prison Wednesday.
Cinefra is the third former Plum High School teacher to plead guilty to similar charges. But he faced more time than the others, Joseph Ruggieri and Jason Cooper, because his victim was younger. Cinefra’s victim was 15, and he was 25, when he gave her alcohol and repeatedly had her perform a sex act on him in 2011.
Defense attorney Patrick Thomassey says Cinefra “ruined his life. He knows it.”
Ruggieri is serving two to five years and Cooper 1½ to 3 years, respectively.