Wild party leads to arrest of Lake Co. elementary school teacher

LAKE COUNTY, Fla. — Investigators said a Lake County house was the scene of a wild high school party, and the host was a teacher.

At Pine Ridge Elementary School parents Channel 9's Jeff Deal spoke to express surprise when told that second-grade teacher Antonia Marino was arrested at her Minneola home.

Deputies were called to the house early Sunday morning after a report of a wild party.

"They're throwing bottles out the windows, driving around and, uh, it's getting a little ridiculous out here," a caller to 911 said.

Some neighbors told Deal that cars lined both sides the street and high school students were everywhere.

On Monday a few beer cans littered the neighborhood. Residents told Deal the cans were leftovers from the party.

"I heard a couple of people yelling about beer that's coming," said the caller.

According to deputies, when they first arrived at the home Marino refused to open the door.

They said that once they were in the house they found a girl passed out in a closet with vomit on herself. She was taken to the hospital.

"She wasn't even home when it happened," a man at the teacher's house told Deal Monday.

"She wasn't?" Deal asked.

"No. She come in, there was a bunch of people and the cops just took her," the man said.

One parent who said her son was at the party said she feels bad for the teacher. She said her son told her Marino knew teens were drinking alcohol.

"Maybe being a teacher she really should have known the law about kids and drinking," said the parent.

Marino was charged with open house parties, two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and resisting without violence (obstruction). She was booked into the Lake County Jail.

WFTV