Teacher Accused of 'Grooming' Teen Hit with 52 New Charges, as Husband Stands by Her

The New York Post shared video footage of Christina and Michael Formella walking into court hand in hand along with her legal team on Tuesday in Illinois, where she faced new charges as disturbing new details in the case against her were uncovered.

She walked out with an additional 52 charges, to go along with the three she was originally facing -- all of them related to an alleged two-year relationship with a teen boy she's accused of grooming from the moment they first met when he was just 14 years old.

The 30-year-old former special education teacher at Downers Grove South High School teacher in suburban Chicago was arraigned on 20 counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault, multiple counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, indecent solicitation of a child and six counts of grooming.

She was indicted in May by the DuPage County grand jury, according to The Daily Herald, but those charges remained sealed until her appearance in court on Tuesday morning. Formella has pleaded not guilty to all of them.

The new charges join her existing charges of one count of Aggravated Criminal Sexual Abuse, one count of Criminal Sexual Assault, and one count of Aggravated Criminal Sexual Abuse. If convicted on all charges, she faces up to 60 years behind bars.

Despite the 55 total charges, Judge Mia McPherson denied prosecution's request to have the defendant detained in this case, stating that she did not see sufficient evidence that she could not impose sufficient conditions on Formella to mitigate any possible threats to the victim.

As such, Formella was released from custody, but with several conditions including a GPS monitor to prevent her from approaching the victim, as well as monitoring software on all of her electronic devices.

"While this case is horrific in nature — it’s shocking, it’s appalling, it’s garnering lots of attention — I do believe under the SAFE-T Act I am tied to whether there are any conditions I can set to mitigate the risk she poses to (the boy) right now," McPherson said on Tuesday.

While the initial charges stated that Formella and the underage teen had sexual intercourse in her classroom at the school, new evidence alleges a far larger ongoing relationship between the two, per the Herald, including at least 45 alleged sexual encounters.

The investigation uncovered at least five of those alleged instances of sexual assault and abuse as happening at Formella's home near the high school during school hours, according to the prosecution.

In court, the prosecution shared that the revelation of the alleged assaults happening on a much larger scale than originally believed came first from additional interviews with the alleged victim.

They then pored through "hundreds if not thousands of text messages" that all appeared to back up the victim's story, according to prosecutor Jaclyn McAndrew in court.

The investigation also uncovered alleged communications between Formella and the boy, including a slew of mistruths about Formella's relationship with her husband, like that she had no intentions of marrying him.

McAndrew told the judge that their investigation pinpoints the inappropriate communications between Formella and the student as beginning almost immediately after he walked into her classroom when he was 14 years old, and they continued for about two years.

Formella allegedly "lured" the boy, according to language used by McAndrew, beginning in September 2023. The Herald details that she was a coach for the soccer team he was on in that fall of his freshman year.

In detailing the at least 45 alleged instances of sexual activity at the school, McAndrew revealed one purported text message about almost being caught by a teacher.

Additional texts purportedly exchanged between Formella and the student saw the former teacher allegedly claim that she had no intention of marrying her husband. McAndrew said that Formella even alleged he was having an affair with her best friend and intended to leave her, after which she would have millions of dollars.

She even texted the teen, according to the investigation, while on vacation with her husband in Italy.

"She knew what she was doing was wrong," McAndrew argued to the judge, "She is unbelieving conniving, and she is unbelieving controlling."

On another occasion, Formella allegedly wrote that one of her neighbors had been charged with a similar crime and she was afraid of getting charged herself.

The new charges come after the initial investigation saw Formella paint more of a victim picture for herself, according to police, calling the teen a "stalker" in her initial conversations with detectives, and stating that her husband was aware of what was going on.

She also accused the teen of sending messages from her phone, including one that purportedly read, "I love having sex with you," as "blackmail." She said she was being targeted because she's "good looking," according to court documents reviewed by The Daily Mail.

Michael Formella and Christina got married this past summer, approximately six months after the alleged sexual abuse, per the documents. But while Christina said he knew all about her "stalker," Michael said otherwise, according to police.

"Oddly enough, her husband told detectives that he knows nothing about [accuser] beyond his status as a soccer player," they wrote in the documents.

Alleged text messages revealed in April, though, saw Formella at least appear to be presenting an emotional relationship between her and the student, though she initially claimed any sex talk found in the "Notes" app on her phone was about her husband.

Some of the first text messages uncovered allegedly between Formella and the teen revealed a much more emotionally fraught relationship. It was a text message purportedly from her that triggered the investigation, after the teen's mother found it and others on her son's phone.

Along with alleged texts between Formella and the teen, investigators found more "Notes" messages written as if they were texts she'd intended to send to the teen, or just wrote in that fashion.

Among them were claims that he was "ruining" her marriage and using her, as well as language asserting that they were dating and had broken up multiple times.

"I went back and screen shotted every, single, time that I said we should break up until after the wedding and after you graduated," Formella allegedly wrote. "And every single f--king time you came back and convinced me it would be fine."

"I initiated every single break up. Only for you to end things saying you couldn't get over it," the court filings continued.

"YOU ruined us," she added, per the document.. I warned you we should never have started dating a long long long f--king time ago and you gas lit me and convinced me it would be fine."

She also claimed the teen "cheated" on her, calling out his next girlfriend, per the report. "All I was to you was somebody to f--k," the alleged messages read. "I'm not upset, I'm not mad, I'm not any of that, I've just lost interest."

"I warned you we should have never started dating a long f--king time ago and you gas lit me and convinced me it was fine every single time bc that's who you are," she allegedly wrote.

"You, once again, waited and strung me along until it was convenient for you," the message read. "It broke me last time. This time, it changed me. I'm not sad. I'm f--king mad that I let a 16 year old f--k with me like that and I made a promise to myself that I never will let any guy f--k with me like that again. Ever. ... In the end, we both lost."

"You lost the girl who would have stuck with you through thick and thin, who would have changed anything about herself to make you happy, and I lost the person I was before I met you."

Additional entries saw Formella allegedly hopeful that they could reach a healthier place together, even if they did not remain involved with one another.

Under a section she called "Manifestations," the documents claim she believed the teen would "reach out" to "try to fix things between us" -- adding, "In the meantime, I'm going to live my best life knowing he's not the person I thought he was and that he is beneath me."

The investigation into Formella began on Saturday, March 15 -- after the victim and his mother went to Downers Grove Police Department to report "inappropriate sexual contact." The mom allegedly discovered a text message thread on her son's cell phone between him and the teacher.

The teen also reportedly claimed the two began texting "a year and a half ago," adding that they even FaceTimed. Per TMZ, citing court docs, she began tutoring him after he broke his collarbone, with Formella giving him her phone number so they could play a game called "8-Ball Pool" on their phones.

The investigation's findings, per the DuPage County State's Attorney's Office, allege the pair were in a classroom together in December 2023 for a tutoring session when "Formella sexually assaulted the boy."

Prosecutors say Formella shut the door, and started kissing the victim, who reportedly fondled her, and she removed his clothes. They both allegedly took off her leggings, and he put on a condom and had sex with Formella. He was 15 and she was 28 at the time, prosecutors allege.

That initial investigation concluded with the belief that they had never had sex again, but these latest charges clearly show prosecutors now believe otherwise.

Per the original documents, Formella told police "everybody comes after her because she is good looking and she is just a good person who cared too much about [the boy]."

When asked about the texts, she allegedly said the teen "grabbed her phone" when she left it unattended and he "sent the message to his phone, had then deleted the message from her phone, and had saved it to his phone as blackmail."

Formella resigned from her position at the high school and voluntarily surrendered her teaching license on Monday, according to a statement from the Community High School District 99 seen by the Chicago Tribune.

The National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline -- 800.656.HOPE (4673) -- provides free, 24/7 support for those in need.