School employee jailed for contact with student, 15

Saying the former director of communications for a private school in Pennsburg betrayed the trust placed in him as a mentor, a judge ordered him to jail for having inappropriate social media communications with a 15-year-old boy at the school.

“You were in a position of trust. You took advantage of that and that’s something that young man is going to have a hard time overcoming,” Montgomery County Judge Thomas C. Branca addressed Edwin Desean Stubbs as he sentenced Stubbs to six to 23 months in the county jail.

During a nonjury trial last November, the judge convicted

Stubbs, 26, most recently of Newark, N.J., of charges of unlawful contact with a minor, criminal use of a communication facility and corruption of a minor in connection with incidents that occurred between March and May 2016 while he was director of communications for The Perkiomen School, a private college preparatory high school in Pennsburg.

The judge acquitted Stubbs of a more serious charge of criminal solicitation to commit sex abuse of children in connection with the incident.

Branca ordered Stubbs to report to the jail on May 8 to begin serving the sentence.

Branca also ordered Stubbs to complete five years’ probation following his parole, meaning Stubbs will be under court supervision for seven years. Stubbs will be under sex offender supervision and must report his address to state police for 25 years to satisfy requirements under the so-called Megan’s Law. The judge also ordered 250 hours of community service.

With the charges, prosecutors alleged Stubbs had inappropriate communications of a sexual nature with the teenage boy, including asking the boy if he measured his genitals. Stubbs, prosecutors alleged, used the social media application “Snapchat” to communicate electronically with the boy.

“What he did was illegal. He got drunk and he solicited naked pictures from a troubled teenager,” county Assistant District Attorney Erika Lyn Wevodau said as she argued for the jail sentence for Stubbs. “The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”

At trial, defense lawyer V. Erik Petersen argued Stubbs did not know he was communicating with a 15-year-old boy and believed he was in a conversation with another adult gay man.

“This is a man who has never been in trouble before, never once,” Petersen said as he argued for a probationary sentence for Stubbs. “My client maintains his innocence.”

When Stubbs addressed the courtroom he said people

accused him of doing “something that I did not do” and he apologized to his family and friends for having to listen to the “derogatory” comments being made about him in court.

“That’s not the type of person I am. I feel I have been discriminated against because I’m a young gay man,” Stubbs added.

The judge said there was no bias or prejudice in his verdict.

“It had nothing to do with you being a gay man,” Branca addressed Stubbs. “I didn’t find you credible. I don’t believe this was an accident.”

The victim, who testified at trial, was not in court on Tuesday, his parents explaining that the teenager didn’t want to revisit the “hurt and pain.” Testimony revealed the boy suffers

from depression and anxiety and is still receiving counseling.

The investigation began May 19, 2016, when county child social workers received a tip concerning suspected child abuse, a report that a juvenile student at The Perkiomen School had received sexually inappropriate electronic messages from a member of the school’s administrative staff, according to the criminal complaint.

The boy told investigators that he met Stubbs around October 2015 through an after-school club, befriended Stubbs and viewed him as a mentor, according to the arrest affidavit filed by Upper Perk Police Officer R. Matthew Boaman. At some point during the winter of 2015 the boy and Stubbs exchanged Snapchat user information

and began using that application to communicate electronically, Boaman alleged.

The boy disclosed that in the spring of 2016 Stubbs sent him inappropriate messages through Snapchat and that he took a “screen shot” of the Snapchat conversation. During the conversation, Stubbs allegedly claimed he had seven or eight beers and was looking for “content,” according to the criminal complaint.

Shortly thereafter in the message Stubbs asked the boy if he ever measured his “junk,” a slang term for genitals, according to the criminal complaint.

“(The victim) said he knew the conversation with Stubbs was inappropriate, which is why he took a screen shot of it,” Boaman wrote in the arrest affidavit.