A former parochial schoolteacher in Montgomery County has been on the run since his arrest on child abuse charges nearly 20 years ago, and law enforcement officials are asking the public to help capture him.
Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office officials said Edward John Santora Jr. was a mathematics teacher at St. Andrew Apostle School in the Kemp Mill neighborhood of Silver Spring in 1981 when he allegedly began beating and molesting a young male student.
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Santora was charged with two counts of child abuse involving sexual relations in 1989 after the alleged victim, then 21, walked into the police station in Wheaton and complained about the relationship. Santora was arrested at his Howard County home but fled several months later after posting bail. He was 44 at the time. He has not been seen since.
The young man told detectives that the relationship began when he was a 13-year-old eighth-grader in Santora’s math class, and that Santora became a father figure to him. As the relationship grew, the young man told police, he and Santora spent increasingly more time together away from the school.
Santora paid the youth to do chores at his house and took him to Baltimore Orioles baseball games, to Ocean City and ski trips, according to court documents. Santora befriended the young man’s parents and paid his high school tuition.
Santora began taking the boy to “The Block” in Baltimore to see peep shows and buy X-rated magazines. The relationship became sexual and violent, police said. The teacher set up a system of rewards and punishments for grades. For poor grades, the young man’s hands were tied to overhead pipes and he was beaten with a belt.
Police are still looking for Santora, who would be 64 years old now. He is also a licensed lawyer.
Sheriff’s officials warn citizens to not try to apprehend Santora. He is considered armed and dangerous. Anyone with information about Santora is asked to call the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office at 240-777-7022 or contact a local law enforcement agency.
