A married Illinois special education teacher broke down in distress after learning she was being charged with sexually assaulting one of her teenage students. Intense bodycam footage of her arrest reveals the shocking moment she realized the gravity of the accusations.
Christina Formella, 30, sobbed uncontrollably as she was placed in the back of a Downers Grove Police vehicle on March 16. The footage, published by the YouTube channel Ape Huncho, captures her gasping for air and crying into her cuffed hands.
“Oh my God. What the f–k?” she repeated, rocking back and forth with her knees pulled to her chest.
As she struggled to process the situation, she told officers, “I feel like I’m gonna throw up.” The officers quickly found a bag and towels in case she became sick.
Formella, a special education teacher at Downers Grove South High School, was arrested over allegations that she molested a 15-year-old student she tutored and coached in soccer two years earlier.
Investigators uncovered explicit text messages exchanged between Formella and the boy, professing love for each other and discussing encounters in a school classroom.
“I love you sooooo much baby… Even though this morning was short, it was perfect,” she allegedly texted him. At the time, Formella was 28 years old.
Days before her arrest, the boy’s mother discovered the messages while setting up a new phone for her son. He then confessed the alleged relationship, which he claimed to have ended, leading to police involvement.
Police stopped Formella’s vehicle in a Chicago suburb while she was driving with her husband. The bodycam footage shows her appearing confused when asked to step out of the car.
“You can just grab whatever you need,” an officer told her after confirming her identity.
“Whatever I need?” she responded, visibly disoriented. Her husband, equally bewildered, asked, “Is she going somewhere?”
The officer simply replied, “Yeah, we’re going to explain everything to you,” before placing Formella in handcuffs and escorting her to the squad car.
Shocked and panicked, she asked, “Is my husband coming with? Am I in trouble? I am so lost right now.” Officers informed her she was being detained for an investigation and that more details would be provided at the station.
During her police interview, Formella claimed she was being blackmailed by the student and insisted she was targeted because of her appearance.
“She claimed that one day, [the boy] had grabbed her phone unattended, entered her passcode, sent messages to himself, then deleted them from her phone and saved them on his device as blackmail,” court documents state.
“[Formella said] everybody comes after her because she is good-looking and she is just a good person who cared too much about [the boy],” according to the report.
30-year-old married Illinois teacher Christina Formella arrested in March for allegedly m*lesting a 15-year-old boy during a tutoring session.
Formella’s husband was with her during the arrest in Downers Grove, unaware of what his wife had done.
She wasn’t initially told what… pic.twitter.com/81ES4YPLdH
— Paul A. Szypula (@Bubblebathgirl) April 1, 2025
Formella was charged with two counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault and released on the condition that she not enter school grounds or have contact with minors. She was also placed on paid leave from her teaching position.
Social media posts indicate that Formella and her husband, a former student-athlete at Concordia University, were married as recently as August. She had been teaching at Downers Grove South High School since 2020 and obtained her teaching license in 2017.
The community still remains in shock over the allegations against the once-respected educator.
