A former teacher and band director at Warwick High School acknowledged betraying his family, students — and the teenage pupil with whom he had a lengthy illicit relationship.

"There isn't anything I can say that can make up for what I have done," Todd Sheerer said today in court. "I have wronged a lot of people. I have caused a lot of pain. I am ashamed of what I have done."

But despite Sheerer's claims of rehabilitation and his family's plea for leniency, a Lancaster County judge sentenced the former West Hempfield Township man to spend three to nine years in state prison.

Judge Margaret C. Miller's sentence went well beyond the state minimum sentence of probation, but fell short of the five years in prison Sheerer faced for each of six corruption-of-minors counts to which he pleaded guilty in October.

Miller, calling Sheerer narcissistic and selfish, said the defendant deserves jail time for betraying the trust of his student body and the community in having sexual contact with a female band member beginning when she was 15.

"You owed a duty to her — as you did all of your students — to protect her," Miller said in sentencing Sheerer. "Instead you used her."

The judge's sentence capped a dramatic two-hour-long hearing this morning in which Sheerer's wife pleaded for leniency and the victim's family argued for a stiff penalty.

Sheerer, 30, has been in prison here since May when he violated bail conditions for the third time and reportedly had contact with the girl.

Sheerer's wife, Elizabeth, told the judge that during her husband's affair with the student, he was a different man.

"He was not the man I married," she said. "He was going down in depression. I was losing him, and I couldn't figure out why."

At times sobbing before the judge, Mrs. Sheerer said she had hired an attorney and began the proceedings for a divorce —\!q but put all that to a stop when she visited her husband in prison in May.

"He really took responsibility for what he's done," she said.

She said prison officials during that visit would not allow Sheerer to see his young son. "That's when I really saw it hit him," she said. "I could feel that he understood what he did."

Mrs. Sheerer said her husband writes letters to her every day, asking about family and how her finances are. "He doesn't think about himself," she said. "That's a big change."

Mrs. Sheerer, speaking directly to the judge, said: "I ask if you could think about our family. We lost our home. We lost everything. He has changed. I see it in his heart. I see it in his soul. He has changed."

Members of the victim's family, however, expressed clear anger at Sheerer. Standing just feet away from the defendant, they accused him of stalking the girl.

"They're painting a beautiful picture of him," said the victim's grandmother. "I don't see it. He corrupted her. He did it. Should he get off without paying the penalty? No."

The victim's mother said the family had trusted Sheerer and had lengthy conversations with him about the band. "And while we were talking to him, he's corrupting our daughter," she said.

"My daughter has a right to feel safe," she said. "She doesn't feel safe.

"I ask that you sentence him to the maximum in a state penitentiary," she said, "where he can't come after my daughter again."

Prosecutors allege the relationship began in January 2006 when the teenager, now 18, was 15 and one of Sheerer's female students.

Sheerer, formerly of Coronet Avenue in West Hempfield Township, was arrested in January 2008 when police found the couple in the back seat of a car parked behind the Friendly's restaurant on Oregon Pike in Manheim Township.

Sheerer's jeans were unzipped and he told the officer the girl was 19, according to court documents. Police later determined she was 17 at the time.

Sheerer had been the high school and middle school band director. He had also taught music at both schools.

The teenager told police she and Sheerer had multiple sexual encounters at Warwick High School and in vehicles parked in Lititz and Manheim boroughs and Warwick, Penn and Manheim townships.

He was released on $25,000 bail and ordered to have no unsupervised contact with the alleged victim. But in March 2008, police learned he had allegedly resumed contact with the teenager using a newly purchased cell phone.

Sheerer's bail was revoked, and he was sent to prison until he was released on $250,000 cash bail.

In April 2008, the Warwick School Board fired Sheerer and agreed to provide $75,000 to the alleged victim's family for emotional counseling.

Then in May 2008, police said, they were contacted again when Sheerer and the teenager, now 18, were observed together in a wooded area behind the teenager's home.

Sheerer's bail was increased to $1.25 million and he was returned to Lancaster County Prison, where he remains.

The judge this morning rebutted defense claims that Sheerer's actions were a mistake, citing Sheerer's refusal to obey court orders in staying away from the girl in sentencing.

"You could have stopped this at any time," she said.


Staff writer Tom Murse can be reached at tmurse@LNPnews.com or 481-6021.