Former Teacher Who Exchanged Thousands of 'Very Graphic' Emails with Student Jailed

A former Plymouth-Canton middle school teacher who admitted to sending thousands of “very graphic” and sexually explicit emails to a student will spend a year in jail.

Sergio Alberto Garcia, 37, was fired in early 2013 after the online relationship was revealed, but the case wasn’t resolved until earlier this summer. Garcia pled guilty eight felony charges in June, the Observer & Eccentric reports, and was sentenced in July to a year in the Wayne County Jail. The charges included four counts each of accosting a child for immoral purposes and using a computer to commit a crime.

Wayne County Circuit Judge James Chylinski also placed Garcia on probation for five years, required him to register as a sex offender and undergo counseling, and required him to pay $1,924 in fines and court costs and $535 in restitution.

He is barred from teaching for life and cannot be employed anywhere that puts him in contact with young girls.

When police searched the former East Middle School teacher’s Novi home in March 2013, they seized two laptops and an iPad that had been used in a flurry of daily communications with the student.

The online relationship lasted for about two months, from Jan. 1 to Feb. 28, 2013, often starting around 4 p.m. when they got home from school and continuing until around 1 a.m. the following morning, then resuming before they went to school, Plymouth Police Lt. Jamie Grabowski told the newspaper.

The relationship wasn’t physical, but the emails indicated the two were “moving toward a physical relationship.” Garcia professed his love for the student and promised to marry her.

Police also recovered love letters Garcia had left in the girl’s locker at school, along with one of his T-shirts.

It’s not known if there were other victims.