Williamsport, Pa. — A Williamsport teacher is accused of having sexual intercourse with a student he began grooming while the accuser was in eighth grade, according to charges.
Christopher Yoder, 42, was already facing previous charges for illegal contact with a minor last April. The Williamsport Area School District teacher was arraigned on two new sets of charges Tuesday afternoon and released on unsecured bail.
More accusers came forward that helped expand the investigation into Yoder's alleged abuse of minors, according to the Lycoming County District Attorney's Office.
Yoder was already on intense supervised bail for previous charges. He was released in April on $85,000 unsecured bail.
Williamsport teacher Chris Yoder walks into court Tuesday to be arraigned on sex charges.
The more severe of the new charges focus on Yoder's time as a Mathematics Alternative Education Program teacher at the Williamsport Area High School. According to an affidavit filed by Agent Brittany Alexander, Yoder began his relationship with the student, who was between 13 and 14 years old at the time, by grabbing her phone and shuffling through her pictures, police said.
At one point, Yoder began working with the student after school for an AEP class. After one particular class, Yoder allegedly turned the lights out in the room and stuck his hands down the girl's pants and underwear, police said.
"That feels nice," Yoder said to the girl as he allegedly felt her genitals.
Alexander said the relationship progressed to the point of Yoder performing oral sex on the accuser. In another incident, the accuser told police Yoder had sexual intercourse with her at the Veteran's Memorial Park, down the street from Williamsport Area High School.
Yoder allegedly told the accuser to start walking home from school so he could pick her up without anybody seeing them together.
In both instances, Yoder allegedly picked the student up as she walked down the hill from the high school. After the first encounter in which Yoder allegedly performed oral sex, the accuser said he gave her an email address to exchange messages with him.
"This was the means in which Christopher Yoder used to solicit sexually explicit images of the juvenile," Alexander wrote.
In a second set of charges filed on Tuesday, Yoder is accused of requesting explicit photos from an 11th grade student at Williamsport High School. The accuser told investigators Yoder requested the photos during the 2020 school year as she started to work out at the gym.
Yoder allegedly told the juvenile, who asked if she had lost weight, to go into the bathroom and take a picture of herself. The juvenile, now an adult, said she felt it was good for teachers to establish a relationship with students, but there are boundaries, according to Alexander.
"She felt as though these boundaries had been crossed and were not only inappropriate but made her feel uncomfortable," Alexander wrote in the affidavit.
Related reading: All charges bound over in case against Williamsport High School teacher
Yoder was already on supervised bail when he entered the courtroom Tuesday afternoon to face a new set of charges. The suspended teacher had 11 counts bound over for trial during an October preliminary hearing.
In the courtroom for his preliminary hearing in October, an accuser cried throughout her testimony. Those in attendance cheered when all charges were bound over for trial.
"Chris Yoder has been suspended without pay since last fall and will remain so until the outcome of a trial," said Grey Hayes, Executive Director of the WASD Education Foundation & Public Relations, in a statement to Northcentralpa.com.
Two juveniles, who were 16 at the time of the alleged incidents, pointed to Yoder when asked to identify the accused.
One recalled a time when Yoder allegedly separated strings on a rip in her jeans and drew with a pen on her upper thigh. Yoder, who the accuser said was her favorite teacher at one point, allegedly contacted the student through the social media app Snapchat.
Related reading: Williamsport Area High School teacher suspended after investigation into illegal contact with a student
Using Snapchat, Yoder allegedly wrote, “Thanks for the mental image,” and “I’d like to see all that,” after she mentioned getting a shower. The accuser said it was “eye-opening” to read the messages. She told the court it wasn’t clear to her before what was going on.
According to Williamsport School District’s guidelines on social media for teachers, staff members must be aware of the “appropriateness” of communication when using social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat.
“Inappropriate communication includes, but is not limited to the following: obscene, profane, lewd, vulgar, rude, inflammatory, or threatening, language or images typed, posted or spoken; information that could cause damage to an individual,” according to the Williamsport Area School District's guidelines on social media.
A teacher's aide provided testimony at the 2021 preliminary hearing saying she "felt uncomfortable when she saw how close they sat." The aide testified that Yoder was always laughing around the two accusers and showing them stuff on his phone.
The two students came to the teacher's aide in mid-May with information about the Snapchat messages.
Judge Christian Frey ruled in favor of the prosecution during Yoder's initial preliminary hearing, acknowledging "more than enough" evidence to proceed to trial with all charges still viable.
The first set of charges against Yoder included second-degree felony contact/communication with minors—sexual abuse, first-degree misdemeanor corruption of minors, and third-degree misdemeanor harassment, according to court documents.
Charges filed Tuesday include first-degree felony statutory sexual assault, institutional sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, unlawful contact with a minor, endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors, solicitation-sexual abuse of children, and harassment. Unsecure bail was set at $150,000 and $75,000, respectively.
