A 54-year-old Wellington High School teacher was arrested Friday after an eight-month long investigation discovered he had a relationship with a teenaged student, a probable cause affidavit said.
Charles Maglio, of Greenacres, is facing one count of unlawful sexual activity with a minor and one count of offense against students by authority figures, Palm Beach County court records show. He was released on bond Saturday.
The investigation began in December when the 16-year-old girl received flowers at the restaurant where she worked. The flowers had a note with her name, but no information on who sent them, the affidavit said. The girl’s manager asked her about the delivery, and she said a customer who seemed to “like her” could have sent them.
The manager called the company and was given Maglio’s name, the affidavit said, and the manager then called the Wellington High School principal. When the teen got home to her grandmother’s house, her grandmother knew about the flowers and the teen said she felt “something was going to happen.”
Maglio was the girl’s teacher in the 2022-23 school year, and she started visiting him in his classroom after school, searching for “a mentor, fatherly figure,” she told deputies, according to the affidavit. Before Thanksgiving break, Maglio asked the girl to stay in touch with him through social media.
They communicated on Instagram and Snapchat, the latter of which was Maglio’s idea, the girl said, believing their communications wouldn’t be saved, according to the affidavit. The teen told deputies he engaged in sexual activity with her as recently as two weeks earlier.
Maglio bought the girl clothes, a heart-shaped necklace and a matching one for himself and a ring that the girl was wearing in her interview with deputies, the affidavit said. She said they bought a cat together, and she had slept at his Greenacres apartment several times.
They’d go to restaurants and movie theaters farther south to avoid people who might recognize them, according to the affidavit. She told deputies Maglio had a calendar in his apartment “counting down the days until she turns 18 so they can be open with their relationship.”
The Sheriff’s Office SWAT and Special Victims Units searched Maglio’s apartment after receiving a warrant while detectives interviewed him in the parking lot. He answered questions about his career but refused to answer anything else, the affidavit said.
Inside the apartment, deputies found a receipt for the ring the girl was wearing, various clothes and electronics. The girl had given deputies a key to Maglio’s apartment that she said he gave her, and it opened the deadbolt, the affidavit said.
In February, the girl talked to Maglio on the phone with deputies listening, according to the affidavit. He said he missed seeing her and worried about law enforcement finding evidence through the Snapchat app. He talked about possible explanations for why his DNA may be found on the girl’s shirt and underwear found at his apartment and would “deviate” when the girl attempted to talk about the sexual encounters on the phone.
“Us, once it’s all set and done, we will be able to see each other,” Maglio said on the phone call, according to the affidavit. “Especially if I’m not a teacher anymore.”
Maglio also said to the girl in the call that he “always saw you as a woman. I’m not a predator,” the affidavit said. There were also messages found through Xbox chat where Maglio discussed destroying evidence before the search of his apartment. Each time they messaged, Maglio would tell the girl to delete them.
The teacher’s phone number was saved in the girl’s phone under an alias, and deputies saw that the user of Maglio’s phone number changed the message settings to delete after 24 hours, according to the affidavit.
Maglio has been released on bond and ordered not to contact the victim or any minor child, court records show.
“We are aware of the arrest of an employee from the School District of Palm Beach County. We cannot comment on an open investigation,” Angela Cruz Ledford, a School District spokesperson, said in an emailed statement. “We can confirm that this employee was reassigned in December 2022 to a position that does not have student contact. The School District takes matters such as these very seriously, as the safety and well-being of our students is our highest priority.”
