Former Chester County teacher sentenced to prison for sexually assaulting student at boarding school

A former teacher at a private boarding school in Chester County was sentenced this week to 15 to 30 years in prison for sexually assaulting a student at the school.

Marc Spera, 58, pleaded guilty Tuesday to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and unlawful contact with a minor for the assaults, which began when the student was enrolled at the Church Farm School in Exton in 2008, prosecutors said.

Spera was arrested in May in Florida, where he had moved a decade earlier. At the time of his arrest, he was teaching at a school in St. Petersburg but was fired shortly after the charges were filed in Chester County.

The victim in the case has filed a lawsuit against Church Farm School, saying its staff improperly allowed Spera to spend unsupervised time with him.

Spera’s attorney, Julia Rogers, did not return a request for comment.

Investigators say Spera was employed at the Church Farm School, a college-preparatory school run by Episcopal clergy, between 1995 and 2010. The school’s president, the Rev. Edmund K. Sherrill, said in a statement that the school staff holds “sincere and deep empathy for a former CFS student and regret that he suffered while attending our school.”

The victim contacted Chester County investigators in 2018 to report the sexual assaults but provided limited detail at the time, according to the affidavit of probable cause for Spera’s arrest. He reached out again in 2020 and agreed to be interviewed at length about the assaults, they said.

Spera met the victim in 2008, when the boy was a seventh grader enrolled at the Church Farm School, the affidavit said. Over the course of the school year, Spera befriended the boy, giving him special attention that included back massages in his living quarters on the school’s campus.

At the end of the school year, Spera gave the student a video game console so the two could play games online and communicate with each other while apart, according to the affidavit.

When the student returned for his eighth-grade year, authorities said, Spera sexually assaulted him in his room on campus and forced him to perform sex acts, the affidavit said.

Chester County First Assistant District Michael Barry commended the victim for coming forward and reporting the abuse, especially after so many years had passed.

“Schools are meant to be safe environments for children,” Barry said. “However, this defendant removed that sense of safety when he targeted his student — his victim — to satisfy his lewd behavior.”