Montco Police: High School A/V Tech Had Sex With Student in Sound Booth

Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman has announced the arrest of 26-year-old Michael Morse of Virginia Road in Plymouth Meeting, accusing him of having a sexual relationship with a student at Plymouth Whitemarsh High School while he was employed as an audio visual technician there.

According to police, Morse and the student exchanged thousands of text messages and had daily phone calls between December 2014 and June of this year. On some days, there were over 250 text messages between the two. The messages came both after hours and during the day, when the student was in class and the defendant was on the clock. Some of the nighttime phone calls lasted for more than an hour.

Some of the messages were sexual in nature, say police, and the student was a minor when the communications began. She turned 18 in January and graduated at the end of this school year. Police say that Morse sent sexual texts to the student on nine dates between the beginning of their communications and her 18th birthday.

According to a court document filed in the case, the student told police that she and Morse had sex in the sound booth in the auditorium at the school. She also said that she knew Morse through the school’s musicals and plays. Morse sometimes worked as stage manager for the theater productions.

Police also say that the student deleted Morse’s text messages from her iPhone after he instructed her to do so, but investigators were able to retrieve the deleted messages. The investigation began on June 5th after police were contacted by Plymouth Whitemarsh principal Jason Bacani.

Morse has been charged with institutional sexual assault, unlawful contact with a minor, corruption of a minor, and tampering with physical evidence. Judge Deborah Lukens set bail at $50,000, and Morse has been remanded to the Montgomery County Correctional Facility. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 22nd.

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