A Baltimore public school teacher regularly traveled to Parkesburg for the better part of two years to sexually assault a teenage boy he met online, Chester County prosecutors said Friday.
Rogie Legaspi, 56, sometimes took the boy out of school to assault him, unbeknownst to his parents, and also forced him to have sex with another man in what District Attorney Chris de Barrena-Sarobe described as “the pinnacle definition of child sex trafficking.”
“Teachers have a special place in our society. We trust them not only to watch our children when we send them to school, but to mold them,” de Barrena-Sarobe said at a news conference Friday. “To teach them life lessons, not just math problems. And this defendant, this man, shattered that trust.”
Legaspi has been charged with child trafficking, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, statutory sexual assault, and related crimes.
He remained in custody in lieu of $5 million bail. He is being represented by the county Public Defender’s Office, which declined to comment on his case.
Legaspi has been employed by the Baltimore the Baltimore City Public School District since 2008, and most recently taught seventh grade science at Hamilton Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore.
In a letter sent to parents last week, Hamilton principal Natasha Pouncey said Legaspi has been placed on administrative leave, and that there were no allegations that his criminal conduct involved a student in the district.
Days before Legaspi’s arrest on Sept. 18, several concerned parents asked the district why he had not shown up to school, unaware that he had been taken into custody two states away.
Investigators in Chester County learned of the alleged abuse in June after a report was filed on behalf of the 15-year-old victim through the state Department of Human Services’ ChildLine system.
In an interview with county detectives, the boy said he befriended Legaspi through social media, and they exchanged cellphone numbers, according to the affidavit of probable cause for the teacher’s arrest.
Legaspi began driving up to Chester County twice a month starting in 2024, when the boy was 13.
During those visits, the affidavit said, Legaspi would fondle the boy and force him to have sex.
Legaspi paid the boy $50 or $100 to “act like he enjoyed it,” the document said, and he often filmed the sexual encounters and send the footage to the boy.
Authorities said the sexual assaults took place in Legaspi’s car, as well as various hotels in Chester and Lancaster Counties.
During one of those assaults, in December, Legaspi coerced the boy to have sex with another man at the Comfort Inn in Gap, and filmed the encounter, the affidavit said. He also pressured the boy to have sex with other men, according to the affidavit.
In announcing the charges Friday, de Barrena-Sarobe underscored the importance for parents to monitor their children’s social media usage.
“You are giving the world access to your child when you give them a phone or you let them have a social media profile,” he said. “And so, you need to restrict the world’s access to your children, and you need to make sure that you are instilling that value in your child from an early age.”
Legaspi is scheduled to appear before a district judge for a preliminary hearing Oct. 19.