YORK COUNTY — A teacher at York Suburban High School has been charged with institutional sexual assault, corruption of minors, and unlawful contact with a minor after a Spring Garden Township Police investigation into allegations that he had sexual contact with a 17-year-old student in 2018.
Michael S. Coy, 41, of the 300 block of S. Royal Street in York, was charged Monday, according to a criminal complaint affidavit filed by Spring Garden Township Police.
Coy is a Spanish teacher at York Suburban High School.
Police say they were alerted to the allegations by school district officials in February, and launched an investigation.
The victim was 17 years old at the time, police say. The alleged sexual contact did not happen on school grounds, but at a “known location in Spring Garden Township.”
According to police, the victim said she had sexual intercourse with Coy in June 2018. She said she and Coy had communicated via text message, setting up times to meet. On at least one occasion, the victim said, the meeting resulted in sexual intercourse.
Police say the victim provided police with the text message conversations, which were still saved on her phone. The text conversations began in April 2018 and ended in June of that year. One of the conversations, dated in June, is sexual in nature and references an engaged contact between the victim and Coy, who also sent the victim a non-sexual picture via text, police say.
Police say they traced the phone number of the recipient of those text messages to Coy.
School district Superintendent Dr. Timothy Williams issued the following statement:
The Spring Garden Township Police Department filed charges today against one of our teachers, Mr. Michael Coy, for alleged conduct that occurred off of school property. Immediately upon being informed of the original allegations that led to these charges, the District placed Mr. Coy on administrative leave and contacted appropriate legal authorities on February 6, 2019. Mr. Coy was hired as a high school teacher with the District in August of 2009.
The District takes seriously its legal responsibilities, especially with respect to allegations of misconduct. Part of that responsibility is to thoroughly investigate allegations of misconduct even as other legal authorities conduct their own investigations. Based on the findings of our internal investigation, Mr. Coy’s administrative leave was changed to unpaid leave on March 4, 2019, pending the final outcome of the internal District investigation, outside legal investigations, and/or the criminal investigations that resulted in charges against him.
Should the outcome of the District’s investigation or the investigations of outside authorities, including the police investigation and criminal proceedings, meet the standards contained within the School Code, and/or should Mr. Coy no longer possess the credentials of a professional educator, the District will take appropriate actions to address his employment with the District, up to and including termination.
If you have information that might be helpful to the police department in its investigation, please contact Detective Hott at 717-843-0851.
Please understand that we cannot comment further on this issue or any other issue related to actual or potential personnel actions.
Thank you for your understanding. Please know that we are doing everything we can to ensure an appropriate learning environment for all of our students.
