Abington man, exteacher, sent to prison for sex with underage girls

Calling a former Philadelphia school teacher’s conduct “despicable and predatory,” a judge sent him to prison for having sexual contact with two underage girls including one female student he invited to his Abington residence.

“You failed as a teacher. Those students trusted you. You took advantage of your position of trust to become a classic sexual predator,” Montgomery County Judge Wendy G. Rothstein addressed Larry Perry as she sentenced him to 52 to 104 months in a state correctional facility. “Your conduct is despicable. Your conduct was predatory. You are a sexual predator.”

As conditions of the sentence, the judge ordered Perry to comply with a psychosexual evaluation’s recommendations for treatment and to have no contact with the victims.

Perry, 53, of the 1700 block of Fleming Avenue, pleaded no contest to two felony counts of statutory sexual assault and two misdemeanor counts of corruption of a minor in connection with incidents that occurred between 1997 and 2010 with two underage girls while he was a teacher at Parkway Center City Middle College, a public high school in Philadelphia.

A no-contest plea is not an admission of guilt, but is an admission that prosecutors could prove the allegations at a trial.

“Unfortunately, you disgraced your alma mater,” Rothstein told Perry, who graduated from the same high school at which he later taught, adding he “groomed” the victims for his selfish sexual gratification.

Assistant District Attorney Emily D’Aguanno sought state prison time against Perry.

“He was a teacher and he was in a position of trust and he preyed upon two students and he preyed upon each student almost for a full decade each,” D’Aguanno alleged. “He violated his position of trust. He preyed on vulnerable girls. They were not only students but they had vulnerable home lives and turned to him for advice and support.”

Perry, who was represented by defense lawyer Coley O’Brien Reynolds, told the judge he is “regretful,” but claimed to care for the girls and he said he never meant to harm them.

“I want them to know I’m profoundly sorry and regretful,” Perry addressed the courtroom that was packed by more than a dozen friends and relatives who supported him. “It’s been unbelievably embarrassing.”

An investigation of Perry began in July 2019, when one of the victims, now in her 20s, reported to Abington police that when she was between the ages of 13 and 17, while she attended the high school, Perry had an inappropriate relationship with her, according to a criminal complaint filed by Abington Township Detective Jeffrey Anderson.

The victim told investigators that Perry began making inappropriate jokes to her and would grab her face and buttocks in a sexual manner, beginning when she was 13, according to arrest documents.

“The two exchanged text messages, emails and other communications that were intimate and flirtatious in nature. Eventually, this developed into a sexual relationship when the victim was 15 years old,” Anderson wrote in the criminal complaint. “Larry Perry provided the victim with a prepaid cellular phone during the course of her junior and senior years of high school as a way of communication with her in a discreet manner.”

The victim told investigators that Perry also requested that she send him photographs of her naked body, which she did through the use of the cellular phone, court papers alleged.

The victim told police that Larry Perry would transport her to his residence located in the Willow Grove section of Abington “on numerous occasions where he would engage in sexual intercourse with her,” according to the arrest affidavit.

The incidents involving the second underage girl occurred in Philadelphia, but those offenses were folded into the Montgomery County prosecution as they were considered a course of conduct.

Other charges of endangering the welfare of a child, institutional sexual assault, unlawful contact or communication with a minor and sexual abuse of children were previously withdrawn or dismissed against Perry.