Java_Bob

A teacher's aide for Highlands Senior High School in Harrison was arrested Friday for renting a hotel room where the police found beer, marijuana, an open condom wrapper and at least four teenage girls and boys, including several of her 15-year-old son's friends.
All the teenagers are students at Highlands Senior High.
Abbiejane Swogger, 34, said rumors already had been circulating through the high school that she was having sex with her son's friends. It is "absolutely not" true, according to Ms. Swogger, but the police finding the boys in Room 107 of New Kensington's Clarion Inn Hotel after spending the night there with her will only fuel those rumors, she acknowledged.
She knows her arrest is going to heap embarrassment on her son at school, Ms. Swogger said.
"I was stupid, very stupid -- I already know I was and I can understand you looking at me wrong," she said. "It's the biggest mistake I ever made in my whole life."
Charges against Ms. Swogger, who lives in Harrison, are pending, according to the police. Police in Harrison, Tarentum and New Kensington are involved in the investigation of Ms. Swogger, who said she remains a teacher's aide for special education students at Highlands Senior High. No one from the school district has talked to her about her arrest yet, she said last night.
Yesterday, Highlands School District Superintendent Karol Galcik, Director of Special Education Debra Lehew and Director of Pupil Personnel Services Karen King did not return phone calls to their homes.
The mother of one of the two 15-year-old girls found in Ms. Swogger's hotel room, however, said she wants for the aide "never to step in a school again." She is eager, she said, to press charges against Ms. Swogger after searching in vain for her daughter all Thursday night, only to have her returned after a night with an open case of beer, several teenage boys and the teacher's aide.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette does not identify or provide identifying information about juveniles who may be involved in sexual assaults.
Ms. Swogger's behavior was "ridiculous," said Tarentum Police Chief William Vakulick.
"It's not something you're going to tolerate," he said. "Hopefully she's being charged with everything possible so it doesn't happen again."
Police said the girls cut class on Thursday and walked to the home of one of the boys in Natrona, where Ms. Swogger picked them up and took them to the hotel room.
Ms. Swogger denies she drove the teenagers to the hotel, saying she rented the room with two female friends in their early 20s and was drinking beer there with them so her sons, ages 12 and 15, wouldn't see her drinking at home. The underage girls and boys, she said, showed up later that evening and refused to leave even after she told them they couldn't stay.
"Maybe the girls are trying to hide something and they are just using me so they don't get into trouble," Ms. Swogger said. "Maybe they were there with somebody they shouldn't have been with."
Her friends, she said, were trying to set her up on a blind date with someone, but the arrangement fell through and "it ended up being all these little kids."
When the 15-year-old girl didn't show up after school, her mother said, she first thought her daughter had gone to a friend's house, as she sometimes does. But that evening, the grandmother of one of her daughter's friends said her granddaughter also hadn't come home after school, and that she had called the police.
After calling all of her daughter's friends trying to find her, the mother said, she called the police as well. Together, they searched all night for the girls, who later said they were too scared of what their parents would do to call home.
"It was terrible, driving all night, looking for my daughter," the mother said. "I didn't know if she was dead or alive."
Ultimately, the police heard the girls had been seen leaving school together on Thursday and might be staying with friends in Natrona. Those friends said they had heard Ms. Swogger had gotten a room at the Clarion and that the girls might have gone there.
When the police arrived at the Clarion at about noon on Friday, Ms. Swogger was in the lobby, they said. She told officers that no one else was staying with her, but agreed to let them look in her room, where they found the teenagers. Ms. Swogger's son was not among them, although she said she had told him where she was staying and he had stopped by her room the previous evening.
Her son is very upset about her arrest, Ms. Swogger said, which comes after weeks of taunting from his classmates about his mother's relationship with his friends. She has asked him what he says when they tease him, she said.
"He said, 'Mom, it's me against the world right now -- what can I say?' "


Teacher's aide who had hotel party quits

A special-education aide at Highlands Senior High School resigned under pressure yesterday and faces possible drug and corruption of minors charges for a hotel party involving high school teenagers.
New Kensington police said they found suspected crack cocaine, empty beer cans and used condoms in a room that Abbiejane Swogger, 34, of Harrison, shared with minors Thursday night at New Kensington's Clarion Hotel. The room contained drug paraphernalia and a marijuana odor when officers arrived just before noon on Friday to follow up on reports of missing teens, said Detective Dennis Marsili.

Abbiejane Swogger

Investigators questioned Ms. Swogger at the New Kensington police station Friday afternoon, but did not arrest her. Charges could be filed as soon as today, Detective Marsili said.
He said police would consult with the Westmoreland County district attorney's office about whether there's a basis for charges of possession of controlled substances and corruption of minors against Ms. Swogger, and whether any charges should be filed against others involved.
Ms. Swogger was in the hotel lobby when police from New Kensington, Harrison and Tarentum arrived, Detective Marsili said. Two female juveniles from Harrison and Tarentum whose relatives had contacted police after they failed to come home Thursday night were in the room, along with three males.
The police investigation did not factor into action taken against Ms. Swogger yesterday morning by Highlands School District officials, according to Superintendent Karol Galcik. She said Ms. Swogger failed to report for work, without explanation, either Thursday or Friday. A letter was sent to her Friday about her conduct, Dr. Galcik said, advising her to meet with administrative representatives yesterday.
"She did not follow proper procedures in not showing up for work," the superintendent said after yesterday's meeting. "We said that she had a choice to either resign or we would be taking this to the school board [for possible dismissal], and she chose to resign at that time."
The one-time exotic dancer worked since September for the school district at a job paying minimum wage or slightly above. At the time Ms. Swogger was hired, the school district had no drug-testing policy for employees at her level, Dr. Galcik said. The school board later expanded its policy to require such testing in January for new employees, she said.
Ms. Swogger says she rented a hotel room to socialize and drink beer with adult acquaintances, but teenage friends of her son showed up and refused to leave. She maintained yesterday that she knew nothing about drugs in the room and did not give the teens any beer.
"I think if they drank, I would have known about it," she said, adding that she unsuccessfully urged the two girls to leave.
Ms. Swogger also said she did not have sex with any of the young people present. They may have had sex with one another, she said, but did so "discreetly."
She said she was upset to lose her job providing one-on-one personal-needs assistance for a disabled student: "I loved it. I loved the little girl I worked with."
She said she relied on her school income along with child support payments and Social Security checks sent to her on behalf of one of her two sons, whose father died. Her older son, a 10th-grader at Highlands Senior High School, was distraught about the attention her case has received and will transfer to a cyber school, she said.