A Paulsboro High School teacher was found guilty Tuesday on charges related to him pretending to be a young boy on MySpace in an effort to have a sexual encounter with one of his students, according to the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office.

Biology teacher Michael Furey, 49, of West Deptford was found guilty of official misconduct and luring.

In Furey’s non-jury trial, the student — who was a junior and 17-year-old at the time — testified she thought the messages she was receiving in 2010, some of them very sexual in nature, were coming from someone her own age, the prosecutor's office said.

“Nobody could contact me unless they were under the age of 18,” she said, referring to how she set up her account.

But one night in June 2010, she realized that the messages were coming from Furey, who was not only her teacher but also her class adviser, the student said.

During her testimony on Sept. 10, the girl described her reaction to seeing Furey parked in a car in Paulsboro, flashing his headlights as she walked home from a friend’s house, along a street only her friend and the message-sender would have known she had taken.

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“I told him he was a creeper and I started walking away,” she testified, saying she was “shell-shocked.”

Before she left, Furey told her, “OK, just delete all the messages and don’t tell anybody this happened,” she said during testimony, according to the prosecutor's office.

Authorities said the girl reported the encounter to her mom two days later and Furey was arrested. He has been suspended without pay since then. His salary was in the $50,000 range at the time and had worked for the district for five years, the superintendent said previously.

Judge Walter L. Marshall Jr. found Furey, a tenured teacher and 27-year Air Force veteran, guilty of both second-degree misconduct and third-degree luring.

“The defendant breached his duties as defined by the administrative code,” the judge said, adding that Furey “used his knowledge as a teacher to keep her interest.”

The judge said Furey’s messages showed he wanted to make sure the girl was alone and that his purpose was to commit a criminal offense, which was “to have sexual relations” with her.

“He could be said to be obsessed,” the judge said.

Marshall revoked Furey’s $50,000 bail and he was placed in jail pending a scheduled Nov. 29 sentencing.

In closing arguments, Furey defense attorney Robert Wolf said while his client acted unethically and immorally and should be barred from teaching, he “did not abuse any official duty” and is not guilty of official misconduct.

Furey, who did not testify, also “adamantly denied” he committed luring, Wolf said, according to the prosecutor's office. “The fact is, we don’t know what he would have done in the car.”

The prosecutor's office said that Furey committed misconduct because his acts were “clearly connected” to his job and intended for “prurient benefit.”

“The only reason the defendant knew the victim was because he was a teacher and she was a student in the district,” Assistant Gloucester County Prosecutor Staci Scheetz said, adding that even though no sexual contact occurred, the attempt is proof of guilt under the luring law.

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