Holmesburg school teacher Erica Ann Ginnetti was facing as much as seven to 14 years in state prison for having sex with a 17-year-old Lower Moreland High School student, but a Montgomery County judge gave her a break on Friday.
Judge Garrett D. Page sentenced Ginnetti to serve 30 days in a county jail, followed by 60 days of house arrest. She will also serve three years probation and have to register as a sex offender.
Ginnetti, 35, a married mother of three from the 3400 block of Ashville St., pleaded guilty in December to institutional sexual assault and disseminating sexually explicit materials. Authorities have said she first approached her boy victim in May 2013 at his school’s senior prom, which she chaperoned. Ginnetti was an AP math teacher at the school. She convinced the 17-year-old to exchange personal telephone numbers and sent numerous sexually explicit images of herself to him via text message during the ensuing months.
In July 2013, Ginnetti and the youth met at Starbucks at Roosevelt Boulevard and Red Lion Road. The teacher drove to a local industrial park where they had sex in her white Nissan Altima. Police later recovered text messages between the two that corroborated his account of the encounter.
At her sentencing hearing, Ginnetti reportedly told the judge that she had repaired her relationship with her husband and children and that she had been working as a fitness instructor. ••
