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Pasco substitute teacher arrested on molestation charges

 
Roy Danny Wingo was fired Friday and had not been placed in classrooms since Sept. 29.
Roy Danny Wingo was fired Friday and had not been placed in classrooms since Sept. 29.
Published Oct. 11, 2015

A Pasco County substitute teacher was arrested Friday on lewd and lascivious molestation and battery charges, according to the Sheriff's Office.

Deputies have accused Roy Danny Wingo, 68, of New Port Richey of molesting two girls more than 50 times, most recently in 2012, said sheriff's spokesman Kevin Doll. The victims ranged in age between 11 and 15 and 8 and 9 at the time of the incidents. The victims were not his students, said Linda Cobbe, spokeswoman for the Pasco County School District. He was fired on Friday.

Authorities booked Wingo into the Land O'Lakes Detention Center. He is being held without bail.

Wingo has taught at several Pasco middle and high schools since 1971 and became a substitute in 2009. When district officials learned of the investigation on Sept. 29, they stopped placing him in classrooms, Cobbe said.

This is not the first time Wingo has been in trouble with the district. In 1987, he was reprimanded for an incident in which he drove two Ridgewood High School students home before school let out for the day, according to a letter from the superintendent at the time.

He entered the home of one of the students knowing her parents weren't there and played a game of pool. As he was leaving, the student hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. When he reciprocated, the student turned her head, and his kiss landed on her lips, according to the letter.

The Florida Department of Education punished him with three years' probation on his teaching license.