Former Port St. Lucie teacher gets 5½ years in prison for sexually assaulting student, 17

FORT PIERCE – A former Port St. Lucie High School chemistry teacher was sentenced Tuesday to 5½ years in prison after she pleaded no contest in January to a felony charge of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old student.

Tiffany Geliga, 36, of the 1300 block of Southeast Palm Beach Road in Port St. Lucie, had pleaded no contest to one count of sexual assault by someone 24 or older on someone between the ages of 16 and 17.

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Circuit Judge Gary Sweet followed state guidelines in meting out the 66-month sentence, noting that, “If the genders were reversed, everybody would be thinking this was automatic.”

Sweet also ordered Geliga to serve two years of sex-offender probation after she's released from prison and to surrender her teaching license.

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Geliga, who told authorities she was born in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, was arrested in May 2017 on two felony charges after accusations she sexually assaulted a 17-year-old male student.

The student, who was being tutored by Geliga, told police he had sex with the teacher on two occasions, according to an affidavit.

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During a controlled call monitored by police, Geliga corroborated that story.

Geliga said she met the boy at Indian River State College, where she was an adjunct professor and he was a dual-enrolled student, and she didn’t know the boy’s age.

Under cross-examination by Assistant State Attorney Jennifer Day, however, Geliga admitted she knew it was illegal in North Carolina for a teacher to have sex with a student.

Valerie Richards, a certified sex therapist and licensed mental health counselor with offices in Port St. Lucie and Stuart, testified that she has been treating Geliga for bipolar disorder that was diagnosed before her arrest.

Richards also told Sweet that Geliga had been the victim of sexual abuse as a young child, but Sweet said he was not convinced there was any connection between Geliga’s mental health and this behavior.

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Neither the victim nor his family was in court, but the mother of another 17-year-old boy, who was a friend of the victim, testified how she discovered that her son had been exchanging phone calls and texts with Geliga for several months.

“I noticed several missed calls on my home phone caller ID from a name, who at that time looked familiar but I didn’t realize it was the defendant,” the mother testified.

“As I noticed another call on a Saturday from the same person, with no messages being left, I decided to look up the name and I discovered it was the defendant,” she said.

She said she looked at her son’s phone and saw the defendant’s phone number all over it “with text message after text message throughout all hours of the day and night.”

“Although she didn’t have the opportunity to get into a physical relationship with my son as she did with the other child, her interactions with him were highly inappropriate and could have led to the same situation,” she said.

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Urging the judge to punish Geliga to the fullest extent, the mother said, “What she did was intentional, methodical and predatory. I wholeheartedly believe she should be made an example of and receive the maximum punishment for her actions."

In a statement Geliga began reading and then was finished by her attorney, Julia Baginski of Port St. Lucie, she said she didn’t know her actions were illegal because the age of consent in North Carolina is 16.

Saying Geliga was supporting her four children, whose ages range from 4 to 13, and that since losing her teaching jobs she has started a business that employs felons, Baginski asked Sweet for a sentence below state guidelines.

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