Alleged soiled instructor Christina Formella claims she’s the sufferer of misogynistic “sexist scrutiny” and bemoaned being painted as a “predator” — at the same time as prosecutors say proof reveals she sexually abused a pupil dozens of instances over a monthslong affair that didn’t cease till the teenager spoke up.
“It’s a spectacle — a public ritual that punishes girls not for what they’ve executed, however for a way they’re perceived,” a rep for Formella’s household advised The Put up in an announcement Thursday.
“When males face accusations, we talk about proof and process. When girls face accusations, we assault their character, their decisions, and their value as human beings,” they added. “This isn’t justice — it’s gender-based persecution disguised as accountability.”
Formella, a 30-year-old particular training instructor and soccer coach at Illinois’ Downers Grove Excessive Faculty, is accused of grooming a 14-year-old pupil and having intercourse with him not less than 50 instances after he turned 15. The instructor was 28-years-old when the alleged affair started, and prosecutors mentioned a majority of the sexual encounters occurred on the faculty.
Prosecutors say dozens of textual content messages assist the claims — together with a message she allegedly despatched the boy saying “I like having intercourse with you” — and show Formella was an obsessive abuser who was planning to rip-off her husband’s household for thousands and thousands and run off with the teenager.
However Formella’s camp says she is being focused due to the best way she appears and since she is a lady.
“As a substitute of discussing information or regulation, public discourse fixates on Christina’s look, her personal life, even her lipstick — as if these particulars bear on guilt or innocence,” the assertion mentioned.
“Christina has been splintered into web caricatures — ‘predator,’ ‘untrue spouse,’ ‘hypocrite,’” the household spokesperson complained.
The protection of Formella’s alleged crime has become “real-world stalking,” her household mentioned, explaining she’s been tailed by “so-called content material creators” when she goes out, and even been adopted into church, “violating the sanctity of worship and terrorizing her household.”
“Christina’s case isn’t being ‘coated’ — she’s being hunted,” the assertion mentioned, including that Formella has develop into the sufferer of “bullying.”
“Reckless hypothesis, misinformation, and theatrical protection do nothing to serve justice and set hard-won respect for ladies again many years,” the assertion concluded.
Formella was arrested in March after the alleged sufferer’s mom found a trove of textual content messages on his cellphone the place the 2 allegedly mentioned having intercourse not less than 45 instances in school rooms, and even a number of encounters on the marital house she shared along with her husband.
She allegedly expressed timeless love for the boy, and after they broke up she allegedly penned a sequence of torrid diary entries on her cellphone blaming {the teenager} for her emotional turmoil — but additionally expressed hope that they’d nonetheless spend their lives collectively.
The alleged grooming and affair started round 2023 and continued by way of her engagement, ending solely after the boy referred to as it off in September — weeks after she married her faculty sweetheart, Michael Formella.
Michael advised investigators he had no concept about any affair after his spouse was arrested, whereas Christina claimed she was being blackmailed as a result of she was good and “good trying.”
The husband has stood by her for the reason that arrest, becoming a member of his spouse hand-in-hand for every of her hearings to this point. Her in-laws have even joined Formella at a number of of her appearances.
Formella was launched from custody with an ankle monitor, and has been ordered to remain 5,000 ft from the alleged teen sufferer.
