Former Ringgold counselor ordered to trial in student sex case
MONESSEN – A Ringgold High School senior claims his guidance counselor told him he was handsome before they had two sexual encounters in a park-and-ride lot in Rostraver Township last year.
The alleged victim, who was a Ringgold football player, also said Friday at the preliminary hearing for Lianne Danko that “she said she trusted me” not to tell anyone after one of the times they were accused of having sex in November.
“She said she had to get home to her kids,” the 18-year-old student testified before District Judge Joseph Dalfonso, who later ordered Danko to stand trial in Westmoreland County court on four counts of institutional sexual assault on a student.
Rostraver police arrested Danko, 33, May 21, and she has since been free on $50,000 bond set by Dalfonso, whose courtroom is in Monessen.
Ringgold administrators removed Danko from the high school in February after a coworker reported her for having what she claimed was an inappropriate relationship with the student, who met Danko last fall for counseling about a problem he had with a girlfriend. Danko, of 246 Rolling Hill Farm Drive in Rostraver, resigned from the district a short time later.
The investigation began after another football player showed Danko’s coworker text messages purportedly between Danko and the alleged victim. The coworker became more suspicious of the relationship after she said she saw Danko run onto the football field and embrace the player while she was wearing a team jacket bearing his last name, court records allege.
The prosecution called only the alleged victim to the witness stand before resting its case.
Danko’s attorney, David J. Shrager of Pittsburgh, said he believed the allegations against his client are false and he will argue against the statute that makes it a crime when an educator has sex with a student even if that student is 18 or older.
“We’re denying these allegations,” Shrager said after his client left court with her relatives.
He said the accusations are “negative and embarrassing,” and Danko is “trying to get her life back together.”