Former teacher, coach accused of relationship with student pleads guilty
A former Bethlehem Area School District teacher will be sentenced in federal court next month after pleading guilty to charges stemming from sexual interactions with a female student.
Christopher Schweikert, the former Freedom High School social studies teacher and volleyball coach, pleaded guilty in September to multiple child pornography counts, court records show. The charges resulted from the discovery of videos showing Schweikert having sex with the victim, who was under 18.
Schweikert will be sentenced Jan. 5 at the Reading federal courthouse by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl.
Records don’t indicate the potential sentence. Punishments for child pornography production can range anywhere from one year to life in prison, according to the United States Sentencing Commission. The harshest sentences are given to parents who victimize their children and to offenders who abuse infants and toddlers or incapacitate their victims.
Authorities said Schweikert struck up a relationship with the student in December 2021 and, on multiple occasions over the course of nearly a year, gave her alcohol and cocaine and had sex with her.
Schweikert was charged by Northampton County officials on Jan. 3 with sexual assault by a sports official, corruption of minors and institutional sexual assault. He was fired by the district.
On March 22, Schweikert was indicted by a federal grand jury on seven counts of producing child pornography, one count of possessing child pornography and one count of transporting a minor for illegal sexual activity. The sex videos were found on the victim’s phone and computer.
Police had enlisted the federal Homeland Security agency to assist with the investigation because Schweikert’s alleged crimes occurred in Northampton and Lehigh counties and out of state.
Schweikert’s trial on the Northampton County charges is scheduled for Jan. 30, but it’s unclear what his federal sentencing will mean for the schedule of that case.
His teaching certificate was suspended by the state last month, records show.
The teen told investigators that the first intimate contact occurred in early February 2022, when Schweikert and the club team he coached and she participated in attended a volleyball tournament in Baltimore. The following month, the team was in Boston, and Schweikert had sex with the youth.
By summer, the teen said, the pair reconnected and snuck to various locations, including Bethlehem Township, Coplay, a Lehigh County hotel room, and two locations in New Jersey, including an overnight trip Asbury Park, where the teen said they had sex “multiple times.”
The teen said Schweikert also provided her with alcohol and cocaine at least twice, in Bethlehem Township and in Asbury Park.