courtroom

(Matt Miller, The Patriot-News)

A former Harrisburg School District teacher who wrote a sexually suggestive letter to a 17-year-old girl will serve 3 years on probation on harassment and corruption of minors charges.

Dauphin County Judge Richard A. Lewis imposed that sentence Monday on Robert Grier, 61, of Dickinson Township, Cumberland County.

Grier might have dodged a criminal record on the corruption charge, but he failed to pay a $500 fee to get into the county's Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program, Deputy District Attorney Abby Trovinger said.

Grier has surrendered his state teaching certification under the terms of a plea deal, Trovinger said.

Investigators said Grier sent the letter that triggered his downfall four years ago to a former pupil, a foreign exchange student, with whom he had become obsessed. The girl had been in his science class at the city's Rowland Middle School.

Investigators said Grier maintained contact with the girl, wrote to her and sent her gifts after she left his class.

In his final, fateful letter sent in late 2009, they said Grier told her she was "hot" and that he got excited watching her walk down the hall. They said he also told her to remember that he was a man with all the requisite body parts.

The girl took the letter to a teacher.

Grier pleaded guilty to the harassment charge in May and Trovinger at the same time had agreed to his entry into the ARD program on the corruption of minors count. Had he completed the probation-based ARD program, the corruption charge would have been wiped from his record.

At his plea hearing, Grier did voice concern about his ability to afford ARD, however.