District attorney will investigate misconduct at Plum school

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. pledged Thursday to investigate faculty and administrative knowledge of inappropriate sexual conduct between teachers and students at Plum Senior High School.

“The investigation has expanded,” he said at a news conference. “There may be other victims.”

A law enforcement interview last Friday with a faculty member raised concern that at least one instance of sexual contact was “common knowledge,” Mr. Zappala

said.

“If this was common knowledge for quite some time, why was it not reported to police?” Mr. Zappala asked, noting that schoolteachers are mandatory reporters under state law. He noted that further charges might be considered if earlier reporting could have prevented sexual activity. Administrators at the Plum School District did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Science teacher Jason Cooper, 38, of Verona, is accused of having sex with a student shortly after she turned 18. He was ordered Wednesday to stand trial on charges of institutional sex assault, furnishing a minor with alcohol, corrupting a minor and intimidating the student with whom he is accused of having a relationship.

English teacher Joseph Ruggieri, 40, of New Kensington, is accused of having sex with a student multiple times before Christmas, when she was a minor.

The office is not investigating any other specific teachers as perpetrators of assaults, Mr. Zappala said.

On Wednesday, a third teacher, Drew Zoldak, 40, was arrested on two counts of victim intimidation after he pointed to the student Mr. Ruggieri is accused of having sex with, during Mr. Zoldak’s forensic science class on Monday, noting that he wasn’t in class last Friday because he was speaking with detectives “because of her.” He then called her to the front of the class and asked whether she would be comfortable with next week’s topic: “sexual assault.”

The district attorney’s office interviewed Mr. Zoldak last Friday, at which point he expressed his view that it “takes two to tango.” It was during that interview that concerns arose about common knowledge of the relationship.

The district attorney’s office hopes to conduct “several dozen” interviews during the course of its investigation, Mr. Zappala said, and will likely be looking into current and past administrations.

Mr. Zappala also elaborated further at the news conference into the witness intimidation charges that were filed Wednesday against Mr. Zoldak.

“We think it was an attempt to embarrass her in front of her peers so that she would not proceed to talk to a judge or jury about her claim,” he said.

Mr. Zappala also strenuously objected to reasoning espoused in court Wednesday by the attorney for Mr. Cooper that because the student had turned 18 before they had sex that he had not violated the state law against institutional sexual assault.

A law passed in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State addressed that issue specifically, he said, noting, “It does not become open season on a student just because that student turns 18.”