Montco teacher who tried to coerce a teenage student to kiss him sent to county jail

John Richards IV spent a decade working as a teacher, dedicating his life, he told a judge Monday, to a vocation he felt was his calling.

But Richards, 58, ruined his career and his reputation by betraying the authority granted to him, Montgomery County Court Judge Risa Vetri Ferman said as she sentenced Richards to 9 to 23 months in jail for attempting to sexually assault a 13-year-old student.

“The actions that bring us here today are horrific,” Ferman said. “He made a victim out of a girl who wanted nothing more than to be a student. There has to be a severe punishment, otherwise it would diminish the seriousness of this case.”

Richards, of Newtown Square, wrote a message in March 2025 to the girl, a student in his eighth-grade science class at Blockson Middle School in Norristown, telling that he she was beautiful, prosecutors said Monday. He asked permission to kiss her “at least two times” during a field trip to Washington he was chaperoning the next day.

“If you say no, that is ok, you’re not any less beautiful. … You don’t need to tell me now unless you know the answer,” Richards wrote in his message, which he typed on his cell phone and showed to the girl. He translated the message into Spanish, her first language, to ensure that she understood him. He urged her to give him an answer before the bus arrived in Washington.

Instead, the girl, feeling uncomfortable, told her family, who notified police. Richards pleaded guilty in September to attempted sexual contact with a student, solicitation, unlawful contact with a minor, and corruption of minors.

Assistant District Attorney Brad Deckel said Monday that the girl’s decision to come forward and report Richards showed her bravery.

“Every teacher in our community is entrusted with the safety and the education of our children,” he said. “This is a defendant who had that public trust and violated it in a horrific way, trying to exploit this child for his own sexual gratification.”

The girl told Ferman during Monday’s proceeding that her life has been forever changed by Richards’ actions. She said she has trouble trusting strangers, especially men.

“I couldn’t understand how an adult could write that to a student,” the girl said, speaking in Spanish translated by an interpreter. “After that, everything changed. Now, instead of feeling protected at school, I felt fear.”

Richards, in addressing the judge, said he was “ashamed and sickened” by his choices, and “wholeheartedly sorry” for what he did.

“Looking back at it now, I’m appalled that I could’ve done something so reprehensible,” Richards said. “I think I was in a bad, lonely place, and I was looking to be seen in any way possible.”

Richards blamed what he called a lapse in judgment on what he described as ineffective medication to treat his ADHD diagnosis. He asked the judge for leniency, saying that his three children had already been given life sentences by the “court of public opinion.”

She was not swayed.