On a playdate, the 10-year-old girl theorized with two friends about why her favorite third grade teacher was no longer at Severna Park Elementary School.

Did Matthew Schlegel have a kidney stone? Had one of his family members died? Or was he, she wrote on her iPad, a “doctor in disguise”?

“Because he would always touch us,” the girl testified on Wednesday at the Anne Arundel County Courthouse. “We thought that maybe he was a doctor.”

The reason was much darker.

Between 2022 and 2024, Anne Arundel County Police allege, Schlegel sexually abused multiple children in his classroom. And the girl was the first witness to testify against him.

Schlegel, 45, of Severna Park, is standing trial in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court on charges of sexual abuse of a minor, third- and fourth-degree sex offense and second-degree assault. He’s being held in the Jennifer Road Detention Center without bail.

Circuit Judge Pamela K. Alban is presiding over the trial, which could last one month.

In his opening statement, Assistant State’s Attorney Sean Fox said people travel to Annapolis to “experience everything that is beautiful.”

But Fox told members of the jury that unfortunately they were there because of “an extraordinary case of betrayal.”

Schlegel was a trusted teacher, he said, responsible for the care, development and safety of his students. But Fox said Schlegel instead used children for the “most selfish, unthinkable purpose.”

Students, he said, thought Schlegel was the “fun teacher.” He spent time with the children during class, lunch and recess; learned personal details about them; and handed out prizes and candy.

That’s because Schlegel was grooming them for sexual abuse, Fox said.

Schlegel, he said, committed most of the sexual abuse behind his desk and “perfected the art of concealing his behavior.”

Fox said the girls reported remarkably similar accounts. The students spanned two grades, and they did not all know each other. He described what unfolded as repeated, calculated and deliberate.

One by one, Fox approached the jury while holding up poster-sized photos of the girls.

“What do these little girls have to gain by doing this? Absolutely nothing,” Fox said. “They are doing this because they suffered sexual abuse at the hands of the defendant, and they want justice.”

But Peter O’Neill, one of Schlegel’s attorneys, described the case as ridiculous and stated that law enforcement never should have brought the charges.

Prosecutors, he said, want the trial to be about sympathy and emotions instead of facts.

“Matthew Schlegel has been falsely accused. Falsely accused of these acts,” O’Neill said in his opening statement. “We are going to show not only is he not guilty, he’s innocent of these charges.”

Before he started at Severna Park Elementary School, Schlegel worked at Tyler Heights Elementary School.

O’Neill described Schlegel as a good teacher who cares about people. He’s a father of two and married to an assistant principal in Anne Arundel County Public Schools, O’Neill said.

Child abuse, he said, is horrible. But O’Neill said the case is about fundamental constitutional rights.

O’Neill told jurors that they will be astounded by the lack of consistency, manipulation and lies in the case.

Police allege that the sexual abuse took place in an open classroom. O’Neill asked the jury to consider: Are the accusations believable?

Schlegel had been accused of sexually abusing eight students.

Before opening statements, Assistant State’s Attorney Anastasia Prigge, chief of the Special Victim’s Unit in the Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney’s Office, said three of the children were unable to testify because it would be detrimental to their mental health.

Prosecutors, she said, were dropping 22 of the 55 counts.

“This was not our decision alone,” Prigge said. “It was made in consultation with the parents and, to some degree, their request as well.”

Prigge later conceded that the statute of limitations had expired for four more counts.

The girl testified for almost 2 1/2 hours as a dog sat near her out of view to help reduce stress. Defense attorneys estimated that they have several more hours of cross-examination, and she will return on Thursday to the witness stand.

She said she’d often sit next to Schlegel, and he started touching her two to three weeks into the school year.

But she said she never told her parents. They later discovered that message she wrote on her iPad.

During cross-examination, Patrick Seidel, one of Schlegel’s attorneys, asked her to provide an example of a true statement.

The girl replied that Schlegel touched her.

Seidel then inquired why she gave that answer.

“Because,” she said, “it’s true.”