Ex-principal sentenced for drug sales

Police said the principal wasn’t selling drugs to
pupils at his school.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A former middle school principal who pleaded guilty to selling crystal methamphetamine from his office was sentenced Thursday to two to four years in state prison.

John Acerra, 50, apologized to students, teachers and parents at Nitschmann Middle School in Bethlehem, where he was arrested in February after he tried to sell meth to an informant.

“I take full responsibility for my actions,” Acerra said Thursday in Lehigh County Court, still looking very much like a principal in blue blazer, tan pants and paisley tie. “I have a disease called addiction, but I don’t blame my wrongdoing on my disease or society. I apologize for betraying the trust which I was granted.”

Acerra told the judge that he has been attending Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

Acerra pleaded guilty in August to two counts of felony delivery of methamphetamine and one count of felony possession with intent to deliver.

Officials have said there was no indication Acerra sold the drug to pupils.

Judge William Platt marveled that Acerra had let his addiction progress to the point where he would try to sell drugs at the school. He said Acerra had “wiped out all the good he could have ever done in his entire educational career. That day wiped it out.”

He continued: “You have a price to pay, and that price you pay may be an educational experience for all of your students as well.”

Police began watching Acerra in early February after an informant told them the principal was using and distributing the highly addictive drug. After watching him sell a small amount of meth to a customer in a store parking lot, police arranged for an informant to wear a wire and go to Acerra’s office to buy $200 worth of meth.

Acerra did not have enough meth to sell to the informant, and he and the informant arranged to meet later that night to complete the buy.

After the informant left the building, police entered Acerra’s office and found him sitting at his desk with a bag of meth next to a glass tube with meth residue and burn marks on it, according to court documents. Also on the desk was the marked money the informant used to buy the drug.