A former Central Bucks teacher entered a no-contest plea to molesting and secretly recording his students

A once-prominent teacher in the Central Bucks School District entered a no-contest plea Thursday to molesting two of his former students and secretly recording another one.

Joseph Ohrt, 57, entered the plea to indecent assault, corruption of minors, invasion of privacy, and tampering with evidence before Bucks County Judge Jeffrey Finley on what was initially scheduled to be the first day in his criminal trial.

Ohrt’s attorney, Matthew Sedacca, declined to comment after the hearing.

For nearly 40 years, Ohrt was a fixture in the Central Bucks district, serving as a music teacher and choral director at various middle, elementary, and high schools. He gained recognition beyond the region in 2021, when the pop singer P!nk, who attended Central Bucks West High in her youth, praised him on Twitter and in one of her music videos as an early mentor of hers.

But, prosecutors said Thursday, Ohrt abused his position, using it to control and victimize some of his students. Families of students, in court filings submitted since his arrest last year, contend that this pattern of abuse was essentially an open secret in the suburban district.

“Mr. Ohrt’s crimes are all the more egregious because of the high level of public trust conferred upon him by his status as a teacher for decades,” District Attorney Matt Weintraub said in a statement. “He perverted that trust by preying upon the very children he was entrusted to nurture, educate and care for.”

Ohrt took a leave of absence from Central Bucks in October 2021. He officially retired in June and did not return to teach classes in the interim, according to a district spokesperson.

County prosecutors first began investigating Ohrt in May 2021, when a former student reported that Ohrt had touched him and told him he loved him while he was a senior at Central Bucks West in 2016. After the student graduated, during a choir trip to Kansas City, Ohrt shared a bed with him and put his hand down the teen’s pants, according to the affidavit of probable cause for Ohrt’s arrest.

» READ MORE: Music director at Central Bucks West charged with illegally recording video of former student

Weintraub said the victim had made a ChildLine report about Ohrt in 2016, but investigators were unable to pursue charges at the time due to a lack of evidence.

After Ohrt’s behavior was reported in 2021, a man who had once lived with the teacher turned over a laptop and other electronics to police, including a cell phone charger and clock containing hidden cameras. Ohrt had instructed him to “get rid of them” as he moved out of Ohrt’s home, the affidavit said.

On those devices, which prosecutors said had been soaked in water in an attempt to destroy them, detectives discovered photos and videos of the former student who had made the report to police in May. In the footage, he is seen changing his clothes. In an interview with police, the victim said the footage had been taken inside a room he had been living in at Ohrt’s home at the time, and that he had no idea he was being filmed.

After Weintraub announced Ohrt’s arrest in that case, authorities said, additional victims came forward to report being assaulted by him in the 1990s.

» READ MORE: A Central Bucks West music director groped two of his former students, prosecutors said

One victim said he was assaulted in 1991 when he was 11 years old and a student at Linden Elementary School. As Ohrt was teaching the boy how to play the piano, he said, Ohrt took him to the school’s music room alone, put his hand down the boy’s pants, and groped him.

The boy reported the incident to his guidance counselor, authorities said, and Ohrt was later moved from his position at the elementary school to Central Bucks West, according to the affidavit. Years later, when the boy became a student at the high school, Ohrt would see him in the hallways and call him a “rat,” the affidavit said.

In the second incident, a victim told police Ohrt hired him to babysit his children while he went out to dinner with his wife on their anniversary one night in 1996. When Ohrt — who had taught the boy at schools in Central Bucks — came home, he cornered the then-13-year-old and groped him.

Earlier this year, the parents of two other students in the district filed a civil suit against Central Bucks, seeking financial damages. The parents, who are not named in the suit, allege that officials there were long aware of Ohrt’s conduct and refused to address it, placing their children in danger.

District officials denied that in court filings. The case is pending.