Attorney for former Triad teacher questions evidence for grooming charges against him
The attorney for a former teacher accused of grooming a 15-year-old student pushed back on the prosecution’s evidence for the criminal charges filed against him during a recent court hearing.
Former Triad High School teacher Michael L. Smargiassi, 59, of Highland, was in court Tuesday afternoon with his defense attorney Jessica Koester to argue that he should be released from jail until his trial.
Smargiassi was arrested Friday after being charged with the following offenses:
Official misconduct, a Class 3 felony
Two counts of grooming online and in person, Class 4 felonies
Battery, a Class A misdemeanor, referring to “physical contact of an insulting or provoking nature” with the student
According to court records, Smargiassi is accused of writing emails and text messages to the student, brushing up against the student’s knee and making inappropriate comments to her while he was a public school teacher for Triad Community Unit School District 2 in Troy. She was his driver’s education student.
Madison County Assistant State’s Attorney Alison Foley provided additional details about the messages between the teacher and student during Tuesday’s court hearing.
Foley said Smargiassi emailed about the girl’s learner’s permit but also wrote “I kinda just wanted to email anyway,” suggested they text message, instructed her to delete their messages from her phone, and used winking face emojis.
The student reported to investigators that Smargiassi had also made comments about her “looking super cute,” that he squeezed her leg above her knee, making her uncomfortable, and that he said he “couldn’t control his impulses” because her knee was touching his, according to Foley.
In response, Koester acknowledged that calling the student cute, emailing outside of school hours and asking to delete messages was inappropriate. But she said Smargiassi never solicited a sex act or photos from the student in their messages, which she argued would be required to be considered grooming under the law.
“The most egregious thing is that he said she was cute,” Koester said of the hundreds of pages of emails school officials found during the investigation. “... Inappropriate and illegal are two very different standards.”
Foley said in response that the state’s grooming law also prohibits “any unlawful sexual conduct with a child.”
The assistant state’s attorney noted that Smargiassi had searched for the student’s home address and her parents’ names, based on investigators’ review of his electronic devices, which she said was evidence that he would pose a danger to the student if he were released from jail. Koester said Smargiassi had not tried to contact the student throughout the investigation, even before he faced an order of protection and criminal charges.
The prosecution also argued that Smargiassi should be detained because he is a flight risk, citing comments he allegedly made about fleeing to Australia and being suicidal.
Those comments were made “in the heat of the moment” during an emotional time in Smargiassi’s life, three days before his father died, according to Koester. She said Smargiassi was willing to surrender his passport as a condition of release.
But Madison County Associate Judge A. Ryan Jumper ordered Smargiassi to be detained in jail until his trial. Jumper cited the volume of communication Smargiassi had with the minor, the direction to her to delete their messages and Smargiassi’s searches for the child’s home address in his reasoning for the decision.
Foley said Tuesday that, to date, police have not been able to unlock Smargiassi’s cellphone. Koester suggested during the hearing that there is a problem with the phone. She said Smargiassi has provided all the passcodes he uses and none of them have worked.
Court records state that investigators found screenshots of teenage girls’ social media posts in a “partial extraction” of the phone as well as a laptop.
Foley elaborated on the screenshots during the hearing. They were of girls in bikinis and “very short, very tight homecoming-style dresses,” she said.
