A Warwick School District teacher and band director has been charged with corruption of minors for allegedly inappropriate sexual conduct with a student in two municipalities , and three other local police departments also are investigating his actions.
Todd N. Sheerer, 29, of Lancaster, was charged with corruption of minors in Manheim and Warwick townships today.
Police sources said similar charges are pending in Manheim and Lititz boroughs and Penn Township.
Sheerer's alleged activities first came to light at about 4 p.m. Friday, after Manheim Township police, responding to an anonymous call, discovered him in the back seat of his car in a restaurant parking lot. Sheerer had his pants unzipped and was with a young woman, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
The young woman, who is 17, told police in subsequent interviews that Sheerer had engaged her in a relationship that had been going on since January 2007, when she was 16, according to Sheerer's Warwick Township arrest warrant affidavit filed today.
Sheerer "did engage in repeated sexual acts" with the young woman in the parking lots of a garage, restaurant, quarry, hotel and in a development in Warwick Township, according to the affidavit filed there.
In Manheim Township, police said Sheerer and the student were engaged in sexual acts in his vehicle at the Friendly's restaurant on Oregon Pike.
Sheerer is the high school and middle school band director and teaches music at both schools.
In Manheim Township, Sheerer initially acknowledged to the officer who knocked on his car window Friday that he was a Warwick High School teacher. But he said the young woman in the car with him was 19 years old, according to the affidavit.
However, she told an officer her correct age was 17. Later, during an interview with Detective Allen Leed at the police station, she said she was a student at the high school and a member of the marching band, according to the affidavit.
The young woman also allegedly told Leed that she and Sheerer had been having an intimate relationship.
"She said that this type of activity has been occurring for a lengthy period of time," according to the affidavit.
School district officials today declined to comment on the charges.
Superintendent John George was unavailable this morning, district spokeswoman Lori Zimmerman said. Zimmerman reiterated a statement made by George earlier this week that instruction and extracurricular activities will continue.
She also confirmed that a substitute teacher is filling in for Sheerer.
A band concert, scheduled for this past Sunday and then called off, has been rescheduled for Feb. 24, she also said.
School board president Jay Hostetter did not return two calls for comment today. Another school board member, Karen Malleus, declined to comment.
Merrill Spahn, Sheerer's defense attorney, said he would not comment on the charges until he had a chance to read the complaint and talk to his client. He had not done so this morning.
Sheerer has been the director of the high school marching band as well as the high school's symphonic band and jazz ensemble. He also directs the middle school's concert band and jazz band.
The director, who is married and a father, has been credited with reviving the marching band, which won the state band title in 2006 and 2007 in the Calvacade of Bands.
His wife is a color-guard instructor for the band as well.
(Staff writers Tom Murse and Robyn Meadows contributed to this report.)
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