By Paul Peirce
Tribune-Review
INDIANA COUNTY, Pa. — A former special education teacher at a state prison in Indiana County was charged Wednesday with having sex with an inmate and smuggling in pornography for him.
Alicia J. Welborn, 34, of Bensoff Street, Johnstown, is charged with institutional sexual assault, official oppression, and three counts each of delivering obscene materials to a correctional facility, forgery and identity theft.
She had trysts with the inmate in a prison classroom last summer and fall in SCI-Pine Grove in White Township, state Department of Corrections Officer Gary Hiler alleges in an affidavit of probable cause. Pine Grove has a population of mostly younger adult male offenders.
Welborn was the prison’s special education instructor when she had the alleged illegal affair with an inmate identified in the affidavit as Justin Price, 29, of Montgomery County.
Hiler said Price, who is in Pine Grove serving sentences for robbery and burglary in Pottstown and firearm and drug convictions in Montgomery County, was a volunteer tutor in Welborn’s classes.
Prison officials became suspicious of their relationship and then sought court authorization to wiretap Price’s telephone conversations and to open his mail.
“This sexual relationship was substantiated after a review of telephone calls and the review of U.S. mail between (Welborn and Price),” Hiler wrote.
Welborn, who previously lived in Clymer, Indiana County, has resigned since the investigation began last fall, court documents show.
She could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
Welborn is accused of assuming a fake identity, Kimberly Vetter, who allegedly worked at a Johnstown law office. Price’s mail at the prison was supposed to contain legal documents, but instead, investigators found “graphic accountings of sexual intercourse ... that occurred between Ms. Welborn and inmate Price during the time that inmate Price worked as a tutor in Ms. Welborn’s classroom,” the affidavit said.
Some envelopes addressed to Price from the law firm allegedly contained pornographic photographs of Welborn.
In a letter dated last Oct. 31, Price instructed her to use a lawyer’s address on envelopes she sent under the guise of Kimberly Vetter.
“That way the mail room here don’t open it, they will have to bring it to me to open and if it works right you can send me pictures that way too. ... I used to get them like that before,” Price wrote. “So you could send some naked ones.”
Subsequently, Price received envelopes purportedly sent from the law office of Arthur McQuillan in Johnstown. Hiler reported the envelopes did not contain legal materials, but salacious correspondence describing numerous sex acts between the pair and pornography, he said.
“Attorney McQuillan was interviewed and denied ever having dealings with either defendant,” Hiler wrote.
Criminal charges are pending against Price, court documents show.
Welborn was released on a recognizance bond pending a preliminary hearing June 25 before Clymer District Judge George Thachik.