A Key West teacher went too far on a date, police said. He’s charged with battery

A Key West High School teacher was jailed after police said he grabbed a woman by her face and forcefully kissed her as she rejected his advances.

Michael Stephan Strasser, 30, who teaches Spanish, was arrested Friday on a misdemeanor charge of battery for what police said transpired on a May 13 date with a 19-year-old he met on Tinder.

Strasser will be placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation, Monroe County Schools Superintendent Mark Porter said Friday.

Friday was the final day of online instruction, Porter said.

The woman is the sister of one of Strasser’s students, but she is not a high school student, according to Adam Linhardt, spokesman for the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.

Police said Strasser invited the woman to his studio apartment on Bay Point, a community at about mile marker 15, at about 3 p.m. May 13.

They smoked a marijuana blunt inside his home — “With this virtual teaching [expletive] I need it more than ever,” he had texted her earlier — and then Strasser placed his hand on her thigh, deputies reported.

But the woman rejected him repeatedly, deputies said.

That’s when he grabbed the side of her jaw and face as he kissed her cheek and lips, and then grabbed her arm and wrist as she got up to leave, police said.

Strasser kept asking, “Why?” and told her she was not leaving because he didn’t want her to go, police said.

He also told her to get into his bed, police reported.

“The victim said she was panicking and nervous but did not want to show [Strasser] that she was scared of him,” the police report states.

The woman exited the upstairs apartment and got into her car.

A few minutes later, she received a text from Strasser that police said stated, “Look, it’s fine if you’re not interested, I get it, but I’d really appreciate it if you kept this between us and not tell [her sister].”

Strasser on Friday evening remained at the Stock Island Detention Center on a $7,500 bond.

This story was originally published May 29, 2020 at 5:53 PM.

Gwen Filosa

Miami Herald

Gwen Filosa covers Key West and the Lower Florida Keys for FLKeysNews.com and the Miami Herald and lives in Key West. She was part of the staff at the New Orleans Times-Picayune that in 2005 won two Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of Hurricane Katrina. She graduated from Indiana University.