Advertisement

Former Pinellas teacher arrested for impregnating student

 
Robert Celeste Jr., who last taught at Pinellas Park High School, has pleaded not guilty.
Robert Celeste Jr., who last taught at Pinellas Park High School, has pleaded not guilty.
Published Feb. 6, 2016

ST. PETERSBURG — A former Pinellas County teacher faces a criminal charge of sexually abusing a student who gave birth to his child in August, according to St. Petersburg police.

Ex-teacher Robert Celeste Jr. was in the hospital room for the delivery last year, according to his arrest warrant. The warrant said the teenage mother, who was not identified, told a nurse the 49-year-old man in the hospital room was the baby's father.

Celeste was arrested in November on a charge of unlawful sexual activity with a minor, age 16 or 17. The arrest didn't take place before then, in part, because investigators had to wait before they could take DNA samples.

"It's a whole process," said police spokeswoman Yolanda Fernandez, "and they weren't cooperative."

She said police needed to get a judge to approve search warrants to take DNA from the child and the father for testing. The results proved Celeste was the father, the warrant said.

Celeste started working in the Pinellas County School District in 1995 as a substitute teacher, according to school officials. By 1998, he was hired as a full-time teacher at Northeast High School, where he taught business elective classes until 2014. He then asked to be transferred to Pinellas Park High School, the district said, where he coached football for the 2014-15 school year.

By Aug. 21, 2015 — four days after the baby was born — police notified the school district of the investigation. Celeste was transferred from Pinellas Park High to work in a warehouse at the Walter Pownall Service Center, where there are no students.

On Sept. 28, he tried to put in for retirement, said district spokeswoman Lisa Wolf. Instead, the school district classified him as "resigning while under investigation." She said he can never be rehired by the district "regardless of what happens in court."

Wolf said school officials didn't notify parents of the incident because they believed it was isolated. Fernandez said there is no evidence Celeste was sexually involved with any other students.

The same day Celeste turned himself in — Nov. 20, 2015 — he was released on $25,000 bail. It was roughly a year after the child was likely conceived, the warrant said.

Celeste, now 50, has pleaded not guilty.