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Former aide receives jail time for sex acts with student
By Justin Wier
YOUNGSTOWN
A former educational aide will serve 30 days in jail for performing sexual acts with a student.
Judge Lou A. D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on Thursday also placed Christina Resek, 31, of Youngstown, on two years’ probation after serving her time in the county jail. She is also required to register as a Tier I sex offender.
Resek performed sexual acts on a male student while serving as an education aide in an alternative-education program. The student was 17 and 18 when the offenses occurred between Nov. 1, 2015, and March 8, 2016, according to the indictment.
The sexual activity occurred in Resek’s car in various Boardman parking lots, investigators said.
Resek worked with the PACE program at Mahoning County High School, overseen by the county educational service center. She was suspended immediately without pay when the allegations surfaced.
Resek pleaded guilty to one felony count of gross sexual imposition.
The indictment listed three counts of sexual battery. Resek pleaded guilty to one count in June, but her defense lawyer and the county prosecutor’s office chose to amend the guilty plea to the lesser offense in court Thursday.
Defense attorney Jay Macejko said his client did not set out on this path.
“She found herself in a situation where she was extremely overmatched,” he said.
While allowing that the offenses were serious, Macejko said Resek was inexperienced and dealing with “sophisticated and difficult” youth.
Judge D’Apolito said, however, society holds teachers to higher standards, and Resek violated standards of character, ethics and responsibility.
He allowed the acts did not take place on school grounds, and they were reportedly consensual.