Roger Weaver Freed: PA principal charged for sexual assault after 7-year 'relationship' with male student
WILLIAMSPORT, PENNSYLVANIA: Roger Weaver Freed, the principal of Williamsport Area School Board, was arrested and charged with 30 counts of felony sex for an inappropriate sexual relationship he had with a male student over a seven-year period. Freed, 34, has been accused of having a sexual relationship with a student from 2015 - when the student was in middle school - that went on even after he graduated high school and was attending college.
As per court records, Freed was charged on Tuesday, June 21 with 30 counts of indiscreet sexual relationship with the student including sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, corruption of a minor, and three misdemeanor counts of furnishing alcohol to a minor. Investigators said Freed began the relationship when the boy was in middle school in 2015. He graduated in 2018 and is now in college. The relationship turned sexual after two years and continued up until last April, according to an affidavit.
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The student told the officers that he approached Freed around 2015 after noticing he was popular with students who confided in him at the middle school service center. He grew closer to Freed after the death of a family member and began to lean on him for emotional support. He trusted Freed "like an older brother,” the document states. Their relationship soon grew to time outside of school, with Freed volunteering to give the student rides to various locations so they could have “one-on-one conversations.”
The student told the police officers that he and Freed would often talk on texts and would FaceTime each other regularly as he considered the educator and himself to be “bros.” They could talk about anything, including his sexuality, he claimed. In 2017, when the relationship became sexual, Freed warned the student not to disclose it to anyone as he could “lose my job over this” and asked him to “promise not to tell anybody”, according to the affidavit.
The student claimed that, following their first sexual encounter, Freed “stressed the importance of not telling a soul” about their relationship and said it was “OK for bros to please each other.” However, the student added that he felt “overwhelming guilt” but continued their sexual encounters “four to five times a week, always at night,” the court document said.
Freed was arraigned Tuesday and released on supervision after making a $175,000 bail. He is required to wear an ankle monitor at all times and is prohibited from having any contact with minors or the victim. Freed, who is employed as a principal at Williamsport Area High School, has been suspended with pay by the school board, according to PennLive.