A Pennsylvania piano teacher was sentenced to up to 54 years in prison on Tuesday for abusing 18 young boys whom he taught in private lessons from the 1990s until today.
Timothy Shay, 50, of Plumstead Township, was convicted of indecent assault of children under the age of 13 and corruption of minors, with the court sentencing him to 18 to 54 years in prison.
“You stole from these boys their childhoods. You stole from them their love of music. You stole from them their ability to love, and you stole from them their adulthood because they are still living with this,” Bucks County Court Judge Stephen Corr said during the sentencing.
Timothy Shay, 50, a piano teacher from Plumstead, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to up to 54 years in prison on Tuesday for abusing 18 young boys whom he taught in private lessons for years. Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Shay was arrested last year after a victim came forward and accused the teacher of sexually abusing him between 1998 and 2003 when he was a child, according to an investigation by the Middletown Township Police Department and the Newtown Township Police Department.
The victim said the abuse, which took place in his house, began with Shay massaging his hands, which he pretended was needed for warmups before playing the piano, local NBC 10 reported.
Shay, who advertised himself across Bucks County, would use the massages as a way to gradually touch the boys’ bodies more and more, with one victim saying he was touched between 30 and 50 times.
“This began in the ’90s and was continuing up until the present,” Bucks County First Assistant District Attorney Kristin McElroy said.
McElroy noted that Shay would wait to build up trust with the boys’ parents before he would prey on the children, actions she said spoke “to the level of cruelty he showed.”
“You stole from these boys their childhoods. You stole from them their love of music,” Bucks County Court Judge Stephen Corr said during Shay’s sentencing. NBC Philadelphia Several victims came forward with similar accounts about how the predator molested them during piano lessons, with one man saying the teacher massaged his groin after making him lie down on the piano bench when he was a boy.
“Timothy Shay took his position of trust with me as a child — in a closed setting — to satisfy his own perversions,” one victim told the court during the sentencing hearing. “Today marks a sense of closure I thought I’d never receive.”
Other victims spoke out about how Shay’s actions left them scarred, with one man saying the trauma forced him to drop out of school, leading to drug addiction and self-isolation from his loved ones, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
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“Tim Shay stole my self-esteem, my libido, and my faith in God and left me with a head full of passive ideation about my death,” the victim said.
Shay, who pleaded no contest in September, will also be listed as a registered sex offender for life.
