A former Lehighton Area High School teacher will spend at least one year in prison after he was sentenced Wednesday afternoon in Lehigh County Court on charges related to his arrangement to meet who he thought was a 17-year-old girl for sex acts last year.

Michael James Feifel, 56, of Walnutport, was sentenced by Judge Robert Steinberg to serve one year less a day to two years less a day in Lehigh County Jail, followed by a consecutive one-year period of probation supervision.

By the sentence being set at one day less than a year, Feifel was able to avoid being sent to state prison.

Feifel pleaded guilty in January to one count each of unlawful contact with minor-prostitution and criminal use of a communication facility, both third-degree felonies. He was arrested in South Whitehall Township in July 2023 and accused of arranging to meet a 17-year-old girl for sex acts.

According to the affidavit of probable cause filed by the Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office, a multi-jurisdictional human trafficking operation was held in the South Whitehall Township area on June 29 to combat sex trafficking in which several ads were posted on popular sex websites.

In one of those ads, a Homeland Security Task Force Officer operating in an undercover capacity posted an ad that she was working with another female.

Feifel responded to the ad, court papers say. The agent posed as a 17-year-old girl working with a 14-year-old girl.

Feifel said he was willing to meet the 17-year-old girl and specific sex acts and prices were agreed upon, according to court papers.

During the conversation, Feifel said he wanted to come to the location to engage in these sex acts, so the agents provided him with a South Whitehall Township location, officials said.

When he arrived, court papers say he parked his vehicle, went to a building’s vestibule where he was taken into custody.

He was taken back to South Whitehall Township Police Department for an interview.

Officials said Feifel had the money for the agreed upon sex acts and his cellphone.

Police confirmed it was the same cellphone used to make arrangements for the meeting.

The case was investigated by Lehigh County Detective Matthew Tretter and prosecuted by Senior Deputy District Attorney Kevin P. McCloskey.

Feifel, a social studies teacher, had been employed there since 1996. A former part-time sports writer and photographer for the Times News, he had coached high school football at several schools in District 11. He had also been involved in a student summer international travel program and last year took students from a trip to Berlin, Prague and Budapest. He was scheduled for a trip to Germany and the Alps this year.

Feifel resigned his teaching position with Lehighton, effective Aug. 20, 2023.