Ex-Bucks Co. Teacher Admits Sexually Abusing 6 Students

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — A former Bucks County teacher will serve up to 12 years in prison for sexually abusing six students. Christian Howard Willman, 40, on Tuesday pleaded guilty to 10 counts related to the "pervasive abuse," the Bucks County District Attorney said.

The abuse began in 2005, when Willman was a teacher at Parkland High School in South Whitehall Township, Lehigh County, and continued for 13 years at Palisades High School in Nockamixon Township. He also served as the girls' soccer coach at Palisades.

Authorities said Willman "targeted and groomed" vulnerable girls, who he would later sexually abuse.

“He spoke to me like a friend,” one victim said in court, according to prosecutors. “At 14 years old, this made me feel special.”

As the abuse went on, he employed what another victim said was a “calculated web of deception” to exploit his victims’ insecurities and isolate them from friends and family, according to prosecutors.

Willman started sexually explicit conversations with one of the Bucks County students in 2013, when she was a sophomore, according to a criminal complaint. The conversations continued to Aug. 2014, when Willman invited the girl to his home to drink alcohol, police said.

In the messages, Willman told the girl that his wife and children were not home, and police said it was assumed based on previous conversations that Willman was asking the girl over for sex.

Similar conversations began with a second victim in April 2017, who was also a sophomore at the time. The conversations were via a social media app, and they continued into 2018, authorities said.

Later in the spring of 2018, Willman sexually assaulted a student while at the high school, according to the criminal complaint.

As part of a negotiated plea agreement, Willman admitted to charges of sexual assault by a sports official, sexual contact with a student, criminal solicitation to the prior counts, criminal use of a communications facility, manufacturing child pornography and corruption of minors.

He was sentenced to six to 12 years in state prison. He also must register for 25 years a sex offender after his release.

The development is the latest in a string of disturbing accusations involving teachers in Bucks County.

Just last week, another former Palisdales teacher was accused of taking "upskirt" photos of female students and posing naked inside the school building. Francis James Reppert Jr., 26, a former Palisades High School math teacher, has been charged with invasion of privacy and indecent exposure.

Reppert was charged after Pennsylvania State Police found the photos on his personal iPhone and a school-issued iPad.

Earlier this fall, a teacher from New Hope-Solebury High School was charged with sexually abusing a student 14 years ago.

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