A community-wide search for a beloved middle school science teacher ended in shock when residents learned he had been arrested and accused of sexually abusing a minor.
Baltimore police were called to Rogie Legaspi’s home on Sunday after his family sought to file a missing-person report. They said the 56-year-old had last been seen leaving Hamilton Elementary/Middle School, where he worked, on Friday, WBAL reports.
A missing-person flyer soon circulated online, prompting parents of Legaspi’s current and former students to volunteer in posting notices throughout the neighborhood.
“We shared on every local page; I contacted everyone in our old neighborhood,” said Carrie Shelley, whose children were previously taught by Legaspi. “We had everyone searching for him because we were worried.”
The search took an unexpected turn when officers entered Legaspi’s name into their system and discovered that he had been arrested in Pennsylvania.
Prosecutors have charged him with 56 offenses, including trafficking, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, statutory sexual assault, sexual abuse of children, corruption, exploitation, unlawful contact and criminal use of a communication facility.
Legaspi remains in Chester County Prison after failing to post $5 million bail. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for October 12.
The Chester County Public Defender’s Office is representing him. The office does not comment on allegations involving its clients.
Rogie Legaspi, 56, was reported missing Sunday after his family said he had not been seen since leaving work Friday
Legaspi was a science teacher at Hamilton Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore
Charging documents obtained by The Baltimore Banner allege that Legaspi first encountered the victim on social media when the boy was 12 years old.
According to the documents, Legaspi traveled between Baltimore and Chester County, Pennsylvania, to see the boy from approximately June 2024 through June 2026. The alleged sexual abuse began when the child was 13, the same age as some of Legaspi’s students.
The boy, who told investigators he knew Legaspi only as “Alex,” alleged that the teacher recorded their encounters and sent the videos to him.
He also told police that Legaspi sexually abused him in a vehicle and in hotels across Lancaster County.
The victim further alleged that Legaspi brought another man to one of the hotels, where the boy was also sexually abused.
The boy said Legaspi made the trip to Pennsylvania roughly twice a month to abuse and record him. Detectives believe the teacher may also have picked him up from school without permission from his legal guardian.
Investigators also allege that Legaspi took the boy to a store to purchase a sex toy and sent him sexually explicit photos and videos of himself.
“The victim said the Defendant would pay him $50 or $100 to ‘act like he enjoyed it,’” the charging documents state.
Community members joined the search for the popular teacher, only to learn that Legaspi, pictured in 2012, had been arrested over allegations that he sexually abused a minor
As the investigation progressed, officers said they located “numerous sexually explicit images” on the victim’s phone that had been sent both to and from Legaspi.
They were ultimately able to identify Legaspi after combing through his cellphone numbers, photographs, vehicle registration, hotel receipts and hotel surveillance footage, police said.
Legaspi’s family back in Baltimore was ‘skeptical’ of the charges as they released a statement reading: ‘He may have been found. Please stop looking for him. We’re letting the authorities handle it,’ Shelley recounted.
‘So everyone is thinking the worst,’ she said. ‘Everyone started to grieve, thinking the worst, not knowing that the worst was yet to come.’
But on Monday, Elizabeth Cook, the mother of one of his students, decided to search Legaspi online and discovered the awful truth.
‘I let the other parents know and I just felt this horrible feeling,’ she told the Banner. ‘I was going to have to talk to my daughter about it.’
The news immediately sent shock waves across the community.
‘To find out he wasn’t missing, he was arrested for insanely deviant behavior was just a gut punch for most of us,’ said Melanie Kerr, another mother of one of Legaspi’s students.
Disturbing charging documents allege Legaspi started sexually abusing a boy in Pennsylvania when he was just 13 years old – the same age as some of his students. Legaspi is pictured speaking with a student at Bluford Drew Jemison S.T.E.M. Academy in 2012
Some of the students did not like how stringent he could be, with one parent claiming students weren’t allowed to talk as they entered class, but saying her son thought Legaspi was good and fair.
‘We hear this teacher’s name in my house every day my son comes home from school,’ said Kerr. ‘He seemed to be really passionate about science, which I thought was really cool… He didn’t give me any red flags.’
Kate Sam, another mother of one of Legaspi’s students, described how parents were left sobbing on the phone after hearing the news.
‘It was just complete shock and dismay that this person that is supposed to be such an asset in the school is accused of this,’ she said. ‘Nothing could have prepared us for this.’
Legaspi has now been placed on administrative leave, Principal Natasha Pouncey said in a letter to community members on Tuesday.
She noted that school officials ‘have not received any information that the student triggering the arrest involved any current or former City Schools students,’ and added that the health and safety of students is the district’s highest priority.
‘Our primary focus remains on supporting our students and maintaining a consistent learning environment,’ Pouncey said.
Legaspi had first joined the Baltimore City School District in 2008, but had been a teacher for 35 years. He is pictured sitting through a planning session with math teacher Teresa Bush
Legaspi had first joined the Baltimore City School District in 2008, but had been a teacher for 35 years, according to a biography posted for the district’s 2020 New Teacher Summer Institute.
He had previously taught in the Philippines and in Texas, and began his career in Baltimore at Vivien T Thomas Medical Arts Academy, according to a self-submitted biography for internal 2016 elections for the Baltimore Teachers Union.
At the time, Legaspi said he was married with children attending the city’s public schools.
He also worked for two years at the now-shuttered Baltimore Collegiate School for Boys charter school and was once a Baltimore Teachers Union officer.
At Hamilton, Legaspi taught science, including to about 30 seventh-graders participating in the STEM Ingenuity Project – an advanced math and science program for middle and high school students.
Ingenuity Project Executive Director Lisette Morris said the organization will now support whichever teacher the district selects to take over Legaspi’s classes.
‘We’ll make sure that we work with the teacher to give the kids grace,’ she vowed.
