Reports of teachers accused of unlawful sexual relationships with their students continue to surface, and as I have discussed previously on this site (here, here, and here, I’m convinced that what drives our attention is not the age difference or illegality of the misconduct taking place, but the fact that women are the perpetrators of these crimes. As a society, it seems we have a difficult time accept that women have sexual desires, especially for someone younger. A large part of that is the way Hollywood continues to create romantic tension between much older men and their shockingly young costars. It seems almost unnatural to hear about women desiring or pursing young men, and so our heads swivel. Without sympathy for the crimes of these women, or of anyone who would seek to break laws for romantic or sexual satisfaction, I think many of us lose something with the headlines.
Mary Beth Haglin is a good example. A substitute teacher in Cedar Rapids, Illinois, Haglin claims that she was seduced by a manipulative teenager. She claims that, “He did so with such intelligence and such an elevated vocabulary that I was completely duped by the whole facade… Many people see him as the victim and me as the perpetrator, but from a psychological standpoint and from every other standpoint, I feel like I am the victim.” She initially resisted his overtures, she says, but the pair began texting and chatting on Facebook in September 2015. At the time, Haglin was 23 and the student was 17, attending Washington High School. In Iowa, teachers are prohibited from sexual contact with students until 30 days after graduation, even if the student is at least 18. She admits that she and the student escalated from flirting through Post-It notes over the next year. They would visit each other when she substituted. The reason the relationship developed at all, she says, is because “he knew that I was vulnerable.” By October of 2016, their infrequent visits had blossomed. They were having sex “every day” at her home, in her car, in his car, outside in public parks, and at both of his parent’s respective homes. But, she says, it wasn’t a relationship based solely on sex. “We met several times a week, not every time was just to have sex,” she said. “There were times we would sit and talk. I thought in my mind this was some sort of real relationship.”
Things eventually unraveled when the teacher and student were spotted by other students in a car in June. One witnesses took video of the couple and posted it on Twitter, where it went viral. This was at a time when, Haglin says, the student began to brag, telling classmates that he was having on an inappropriate relationship with her. Feeling the pressure of imminent danger and being caught, she tried to break up with him. Instead, he threatened to tell school officials about the relationship himself and “light a match and burn down my life.”
While her actions were illegal, many argue that reluctance to the idea of a woman pursuing sex helps keep occasions like these “an open secret.” There is even a kind of social reinforcement, as many feel that a male student who has sex with his teacher is “getting a full education.” Haglin claims that even after the video began circulating online and her relationship with the student was known, she was approached by a parent who eventually encouraged her to confess and tell her own version of the events. By this point, the entire school knew as well as the town. According to the Des Moines Register, Washington High School’s principal, Ralph Plagman, “was asked to resign after the district determined he had participated in an ineffective initial investigation into accusations about Haglin’s conduct.” The Gazette of Cedar Rapids reported that “though Plagman and other administrators investigated rumors of Haglin’s inappropriate relationship in February and again in May [2016], no one in the district ever contacted police.” Haglin told the Gazette that the district wanted to keep her conduct “hush-hush” and though the Cedar Rapids Community School District banned Haglin from employment in the district, she continued to work as an elementary school substitute teacher near the end of the last school year “because of a miscommunication.” A spokesperson said the district formally removed Haglin from its substitute central system on June 14 of this year.
She’s not the only teacher to turn around and claim that the situation has been turned around. Tanya Ramirez, a former teacher at King High School in Corpus Christi, admits to having engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a student. In Texas, the age of consent is 17, so Ramirez admitted to having sex with one student and entered a plea of no contest to a charge involving a second student in January of 2016. As part of the plea, Ramirez was sentenced to seven years of probation and will not have to register as a sex offender or serve any jail time. She did, however, have to give up her teacher’s license in the deal and appealed this decision. Through all of this, she has claimed that she was victimized and sued both the student and the student’s mother. Ramirez claims her reputation and professional development was halted because the student went public with their liaisons.
Many have trouble with the idea that Haglin and Ramirez are victims. In the matter with Haglin, she may very well have pursued the student. The case has made so little progress that both Inside Edition and television host Dr. Phil McGraw have stepped in and invited Haglin to publicly tell her story. Many believe her version of the events. Today, Haglin works as a professional dancer or stripper. The trial is scheduled to begin November 14, but Haglin has requested that it be relocated due to the publicity surrounding the case. “You could wind up having to register as a sex offender for probably 10 years,” McGraw told her. “You need to seriously step back and assess all of the bad decisions that have snowballed here because you are very young.” McGraw encouraged her, because of the situation she now finds herself in, to immediately stop stripping and find other work. “You can so turn this around, but this does not have to ruin your life,” promising to help her find a counselor and a different job.
The fact remains though, that it is Haglin who was investigated and is now being prosecuted. At no point has the student stepped forward to claim he was victimized in any way. To the contrary, there is evidence he exploited her and circumstantial evidence corroborating her version of the events. But setting this aside, what she did was a crime. It is a crime that has repeated itself frequently, in part, because of the reluctance to see women as sexual initiators. In my home state of Louisiana, it seems not a month goes by without another teacher arrested for having sex with one (or more) of their underage students. Each time, I am insulted and amused that this continues to happen. If the genders were reversed, we would not be so slow to prosecute or for the “jury of media” to soften the impact of the crime. A man who participates in flirting or sexual activities with a minor, and especially a student, violates a social contract to protect children – even mature, sexually aware children. For me, these arrests are not about violation of a social contract but the way we find amusement in a “lusty woman” who initiates a boy into manhood. Because of this, I fear that teachers of all genders will come to feel that no one cares. They will allow “innocent” flirting with a student and, in turn, allow flirting to escalate into something more.
Years ago, I taught junior high at a private school. There were two girls in my class who were, at that time, becoming aware of a change in the way men saw them. The two girls were friends and I have always suspected one of the girls encouraged the other to try and charm the men now taking notice of them. Including me, their teacher. The initiator, let’s call her L, began to bat her eyes (literally) and thrust her small chest forward when she wanted some favor – an extra point on a quiz, say, or a longer recess – and soon enough the second girl, let’s call her H, began to follow form.
It infuriated me not that they were trying to charm me in this way, but that I knew their families. I had known these girls, had gone to church with them, had donated money to their car washes and watched them in pageants. For me, I was not charmed. I was repulsed. It somehow felt like they ignored my protective “big brother” affection for them and the clear boundaries of teacher and student to begin exploring their sexual desirability. Though I brought the matter up with both of their families, another teacher, and the principal, I was discouraged from discussing it further. “They’re just girls.” At the end of that year, I was offered a job at a newspaper and took it. By that, I mean the calendar end of a year, not school year. A man from out church was hired to replace me and once the holidays had passed, I returned to the campus to give him the keys. To my horror, I opened a locked classroom door to find both girls sitting on his lap and the three of them looking terribly guilty.
That memory has always stuck with me. One, because it has always emboldened the lines between power structures for me. Teachers should avoid questionable situations with students. The “open door policy” of their offices should have a dual meaning – students should be welcome to visit and talk, but the doors should also remain open to avoid any misconduct whoever the initiator might be. Two, it confirmed for me the need for vigilance in protecting children. Had I not walked through that locked door when I did, who knows what might have happened or how things might have escalated that day or one subsequent. Three, as Haglin said, sometimes adults are “vulnerable.” Vulnerability takes many forms and we never know what someone is going through. Sometimes, even an adult with the best of intentions succumbs and crosses a line. Fourth, like never before it underscored the illegality of these situations. Teachers and those in positions are power are held to ethical structures to protect everyone involved. No one is above or below the law – male or female. What the teacher did that day, the guilt on his face and the confession that followed, demanded attention just like Haglin’s misconduct with her student demanded attention. What these women are doing is a crime. They are not “initiating” boys into manhood, they are not “falling in love.” Vulnerability takes many forms, including the form of predator. While yes, a community should forgive as best as possible given the nature of the offense, that does not mean they turn their eyes away. We must face the reality that women can be sexual predators as easily as men. Perhaps for reasons altogether different than male perpetrators, even well-intentioned or “vulnerable,” but women can be sexual predators nevertheless. In acknowledging this, we are also acknowledging female sexual authority. We are not shaming women for their desires but instead acknowledging their sexual interest rivals (and even exceeds) that of men. Instead of smirking, we need to confront the underlying issues here in our reluctance to believe and address the issue of female teachers initiating sex with minors. Haglin’s story is very human – I believe her version of the events has some measure of truth. I sympathize. I understand the humanness of her story. But I cannot deny that what she did was wrong and I cannot act as though what she did is a “rare thing.”
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Here are some of the other stories of female teachers that made headlines.
Alexandria Vera
Texas middle school English teacher Alexandria Vera, 24, turned herself in to authorities June 1, 2016, after authorities issued a warrant for her arrest on a child sex abuse charge.
Court documents allege Vera had a nine-month sexual relationship with a 13-year-old male student who authorities say impregnated her. She allegedly later terminated the pregnancy after officials began investigating the case.
Court documents allege she was introduced to the boy’s family as his girlfriend, and the woman said that his parents supported the relationship and invited her to family gatherings. She reportedly said she told a school district investigator the family was “very supportive and excited” when she disclosed her pregnancy. She allegedly said she and the boy “love each other.”
Debra Lafave
Florida middle school teacher Debra Beasley Lafave was accused of having sex numerous times in 2004 with a 14-year-old student, including once in a car while his 15-year-old cousin drove. The newlywed was 23 at the time of the abuse.
Debra Lafave was a reading teacher at Greco Middle School in Temple Terrace, Fla., a few miles north of Tampa when, in 2004, she was charged with two counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a person under 16-years-old. Lafave pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years house arrest and seven years probation.
Debra Lafave is seen in a Hillsborough County court Dec. 18, 2007. A court ultimately granted LaFave early release from her sex offender probation after she gave birth to twin boys in 2011, a ruling upheld by the Florida Supreme Court. But LaFave was still required to register as a sex offender.
Sarah Jones
Former Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader Sarah Jones pleaded guilty on Oct. 8, 2012, to lesser charges on allegations that she had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student when Jones was a teacher at Dixie Heights High School in northern Kentucky. Her mother, Cheryl Jones, also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of tampering with evidence. Both women avoided jail time as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors.
Carrie McCandless
Carrie McCandless, a former Brighton Collegiate High School teacher and wife to the school principal in Colorado, was accused of having sexual contact with a 17-year-old student while chaperoning a school camping trip. She turned herself in to authorities in Nov. 2006.
The next year, she reportedly pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and tampering with physical evidence. A felony child sex assault charge was dropped under a plea deal with prosecutors.
Carrie McCandless, shown in this June 2007 photo during her sentencing hearing at Fort Collins, Colo., was pleaded guilty to having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a high school student. The 29-year-old was sentenced to 45 days in jail, five years of probation and a four-year deferred sentence.
Her probation was revoked and she was sentenced to an additional 60 days in jail in 2011 after she failed a court-ordered drug test. She remains a registered sex offender.
Brianne Altice
Brianne Altice, a former Utah high school English teacher, pleaded guilty to sexually abusing three teenage boys, 16 and 17, who had been students.
Altice, now 36, was initially free on bail after her 2013 arrest, but was sent to jail in 2015 after allegations emerged that she continued a sexual relationship with one of the boys while she was out on bail.
One boy said that he considered her to be his girlfriend during their year-long sexual relationship.
But the boys were all minors, and Utah law also says a person cannot consent to sex if the other person is in a position of special trust. Altice pleaded guilty to three counts of forcible sexual abuse in exchange for prosecutors dropping 11 other counts, including several first-degree felonies.
Haeli Noelle Wey
Haeli Noelle Wey, a former math teacher, was arrested in December 2015 for allegedly having an improper relationship with two of her students, reports CBS affiliate KEYE.
Wey, 28, was reportedly charged with two counts of improper relationship between educator and student. She had been teaching at Westlake High School in Austin, Texas until Oct. 30, 2015.
Twenty-four-year-old Mary Haglin was arrested July 22, 2016 and charged with sexual exploitation by a school employee. Authorities in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, say she had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old boy. Haglin told CBS affiliate KGAN that she regrets what took place.
“I’m not shying away from this, I’m not running away from this. I’m facing this head on,” Haglin said. However, the suspect said the school knew about the relationship and bears some of the responsibility.
“The environment that the school put me in didn’t help to curb anything,” Haglin said. “These people all knew what was going on and yet they turned a blind eye because they wanted to protect their school.”
Kimberly Naquin
Kimberly Naquin, a geography teacher, was arrested in January 2016. She’s accused of having a sexual relationship with a female student, then 16, she taught at Destrehan High in St. Charles Parish, La. The alleged sex happened at Naquin’s former apartment complex in Kenner between Aug. 2014 and Sept. 2015. Destrehan High was also the subject of controversy in 2014 when two other female teachers were accused of having sex with a 16-year-old boy.
Kyle Damato-Kushel
Kyle Damato-Kushel, a 45-year-old teacher’s aide from Bridgeport, Conn., was accused of carrying on a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old boy that she once taught in preschool.
Kyle Damato-Kushel was arraigned Dec. 21, 2015 on charges of sexual assault, impairing the morals of a child and tampering with a witness.
She has pleaded not guilty.
Virginia Houston Hinckley
Virginia Houston Hinckley, a 26-year-old St. Augustine, Fla. high school teacher charged with having unlawful sexual activity with a 16-year-old boy, turned herself in on Dec. 9, 2015.
CBS affiliate WKMG reported that the student told police he became “flirty” with Hinckley, his English teacher, days after school began and that he and others commented on how she was pretty and how he “tickled” her.
The student initially asked for Hinckley’s phone number, according to the station. She said no, but when he asked again the next day, she gave it to him and told him not to tell anyone, the affidavit said.
The two began exchanging text messages, including nude photos, according to the student. They then allegedly had sex in a park.
Nicole Dufault
Nicole Dufault, 35, of New Jersey, was charged with aggravated sexual assault and child endangerment in a 40-count indictment.
Authorities have alleged that 14- and 15-year-old boys were sexually assaulted many times in 2013 and 2014 by the language arts teacher. They say some of the sex acts occurred on school property and in her car.
Dufault sought twice in 2016 to have the indictment against her dismissed, but a court ruled each time the charges should stand.
Kathryn Ronk
A former teacher at a Detroit-area high school accused of having sex with a 15-year-old student was sentenced to 6-to-15 years in prison in 2015.
Kathryn Ronk, 30, pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal sexual conduct as part of a sentencing deal. She had faced five counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct.
Authorities said she engaged in sexual acts with the teenager in classrooms at Bishop Foley High School in Madison Heights. Ronk was a Spanish teacher at the school, north of Detroit.
Melody Lippert & Michelle Ghirell
Melody Lippert, 38, and Michelle Ghirelli, 30, were arrested in January 2015 after allegedly having sex with students on a November beach trip in California.
Both Lippert and Ghirelli worked at South Hills High School, located outside of Los Angeles, and were married with families at the time.
Lippert had allegedly met up with a group of male students in November 2014 and supplied them with alcohol, also having sex with one of them, investigators say.
Several weeks later, Ghirelli and Lippert held another trip with several of the same students. The two teachers are accused of having sex with two male students on that trip — one was 18 and another was a minor.
The women reportedly pleaded guilty to felony statutory rape charges and were sentenced to probation.
Rachel Respess and Shelley Dufresne
In October 2014, two teachers at Louisiana’s Destrehan High, Shelley Dufresne, 32, and Rachel Repress, 24, were accused of inviting a 16-year-old student to a home for a sexual encounter. Dufresne faces two charges in Jefferson Parish of carnal knowledge of a juvenile, and has pleaded not guilty. She will be tried alongside Repress, who pleaded not guilty to a charge of failure to report Dufresne’s alleged crime.
Dufresne, a married mother of three, also faced sex charges in St. Charles Parish and reportedly admitted to having sex with a student at a home there.
Danielle Watkins
Danielle Watkins, a 32-year-old teacher from Connecticut, is accused of having a sexual relationship with a student during the summer and fall of 2014. Her 18-year-old victim reportedly told police that when the teen tried to break off the relationship, Watkins assaulted him and threatened to fail him.
Watkins reportedly pleaded guilty to felony charges of second-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor and was sentenced to five years in prison in 2015.
“I was put in a position of trust and I violated that trust,” the mother of two told a judge, sobbing, as she apologized during her sentencing hearing, according to the Stamford Advocate.
Stacy Schuler
Stacy Schuler, a 33-year-old high school health and gym teacher from southwest Ohi0, was convicted of having sex with five students in 2011. Some of them were football players.
According to The Middletown Journal newspaper, a former high school football player testified that he and a friend had sex with Schuler at her home. The student also said he had sex with his teacher a total of seven times during five visits.
She was sentenced to four years in prison in 2011, but was reportedly granted early released in 2012 after serving about a year.
Brittni Colleps
Brittni Colleps, a 28-year-old teacher, wife and mother of three, was convicted on 16 counts of having improper relationships with students in August 2012. She was sentenced to five years. Authorities say the 28-year-old former Kennedale High School English teacher had sex with the students at her Arlington, Texas home over a period of two months.
Megan Crafton
Indiana police arrested high school cheerleading coach, Megan Crafton, after she allegedly had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old male student. The part-time assistant cheerleading coach at Shelbyville High School admitted to performing oral sex acts on the teen in her car in January 2012 and was sentenced to probation in 2013 under a plea deal. The student was reportedly a member of Shelbyville’s basketball team.
Carole Ann Hope
Police arrested 36-year-old South Carolina teacher Carole Ann Hope in 2011 after she allegedly had sex with a 14-year-old former middle school student. Hope was sentenced to ten years in prison in the spring of 2014 with all but two years suspended. Her sentence included five years probation being listed on the sex offender registry for the rest of her life after her release from prison.
Ashley Anderson
Ashley Anderson, a high school teacher in Iowa, was charged with having inappropriate sexual relationships with four male students in 2011. The 24-year-old former Aplington-Parkersburg High School math teacher was charged with four counts of sexual exploitation by a school employee.
According to a complaint, Anderson engaged in sexual misconduct with students ages 16-18 in 2011. She sent students nude photographs of herself and had intercourse with one student at his home. In June 2013, she was sentenced to up to five years in prison, running all three counts concurrent.
Gabriela Compton
Phoenix police arrested 20-year-old middle school teacher’s aide Gabriela Compton in March 2011 on suspicion of having sexual contact with two students. Police say Compton allegedly sent a photo of her breasts to some male students at Western Valley Middle School.
According to court documents obtained by CBS affiliate KPHO, the nude picture was circulated throughout the school. In the course of the investigation, officers learned Compton previously had sexual contact with two male students, ages 13 and 14.
Compton was charged with four counts of sexual conduct with a minor, two counts of sexual abuse and one count of furnishing obscene material to a minor. In March 2012, she pleaded guilty to the sexual abuse counts–and got a sentence of lifetime probation. She had to register as a sex offender, but she didn’t go to prison.
Gail Gagne
Gail Gagne, a 28-year-old Minnesota high school teacher and coach, was convicted of fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct for having sex with a former student and football player in 2008. According to CBS affiliate WCCO, Gagne met the student while she was working in the weight room as a supervisor at Cretin-Derham Hall High School in St. Paul. Gagne was 25 at the time; the student was 16.
Gagne is the daughter of former professional wrestler Greg Gagne, and granddaughter of famous Twin Cities wrestler Verne Gagne. She was sentenced in 2011 and eventually got two years’ probation for a 365-day sentence. She also had to register as a sex offender.
Tiffany Mosson
Indiana teacher Tiffany Mosson was arrested in April 2011 after allegedly having sex with a 17-year-old student. The 35-year-old English teacher at Covington Community High School was charged with child seduction. Police say Mosson admitted she had sex with the male student at her house several times.
Court documents obtained by CBS affiliate WISH show the relationship began with a note passed between the two in class. The two exchanged messages via text and social networking sites, then the teen began spending time at the teacher’s house, sometimes for the whole weekend, say the documents.
Nadia Diaz
California high school teacher Nadia Christine Diaz was arrested September 2011 for allegedly having sex with a 14-year-old student in 2009. According to The Fresno Bee newspaper, the 26-year-old was charged with sex with a minor and oral copulation.
Diaz had been working full-time as a social science teacher at Fresno’s Washington Union High School. Fresno County Sheriff’s officials say Diaz and the teenager had sexual relations twice off campus in January and Feb. 2009 when she was working as a substitute teacher at the school. The student was 14 at the time.
Diaz was sentenced in 2012 to three years of probation and 30 days in an adult offender work program for having sex with a student in early 2010.
Heather Lasseigne Chiasson
Heather Lasseigne Chiasson, a teacher at South Lafourche High School in Louisiana, was accused in Jan. 2012 for having sexual relations with a 17-year-old student she taught in 2011. The 29-year-old was charged with prohibited sexual conduct between an educator and a student and was suspended from her job.
Police at Lafourche Parish Sheriff Department questioned the male student, who detailed the alleged sexual relationship. The student described it as a “flirtatious relationship” that allegedly escalated into sexual activity, including intercourse. Police said the student also showed detectives numerous text messages – some of a graphic sexual nature – apparently exchanged with Heather Lasseigne Chiasson.
Lauren Redfern
Denver area high school teacher Lauren Redfern was arrested in Feb. 2012 after she was allegedly caught having sex with a 17-year-old male student in the teacher’s bathroom. According to CBS Denver, the 26-year-old woman was charged with sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust with a pattern of sexual abuse, a class 3 felony. She was the teen’s study hall teacher at Basalt High School, in Basalt, Colo. Redfern was sentenced to sex offender treatment in August 2012 and got no prison time.
Kristin Leone
New Jersey high school teacher Kristin Leone was arrested in May 2012 for allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old student. Investigators determined the 26-year-old Clifton High School history teacher engaged in sexual conduct with the male student on at least two separate occasions. Leone was sentenced to a year in jail in 2013 after she pleaded guilty to having the sexual relationship.
Kathyrin Murray
Kathyrin Murray, 29, a West Houston middle school teacher, was accused of having sex with a 15-year-old boy at his home in 2012 while his parents were away. Police said they later discovered that Murray had sex with the same boy at a hotel on the night of a school dance and in her classroom in Memorial Middle School on two separate occasions.
Murray was removed from Memorial Middle School and let go from her position after the initial investigation. She was charged with two more counts of sexual abuse of a child and one count of improper relations on July 2. In 2014, Murray was sentenced to a year in county jail.
Kacy Wilson
Former Osceola County, Fla. teacher Kacy Wilson was arrested for allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old student and sending pornographic photos to the teen, the Kissimmee Police Department reported on May 3, 2012.
CBS affiliate WKMG reports that the 28-year-old was arrested in Salida, Colo. She was charged with one count of unlawful sexual activity with certain minors and one count of unlawful transmission of pornography by electronic device. In 2013, Wilson pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawful sexual activity with a minor, which carries a sentence of 15 years of supervised probation.
Sheral Smith
Sheral Smith, a former Mississippi private school teacher, was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to having sex with a 14-year-old student. The relationship reportedly began in the summer of 2008.
Loni Folks
Loni Marie Folks, a Missouri elementary school teacher, pleaded guilty in 2008 to having sex with a 16-year-old student. She was charged with sexual battery after she was accused of sleeping with a 16-year-old male foreign exchange student from Italy staying in the home of Folks and her husband. She was given a 12-year suspended sentence and required to register as a sex offender.
Tara Driscoll
Tara Driscoll, a New York teacher, was charged in August 2011 with having sex with an underage student at a Long Island motel. According to police, the victim’s mother found out and contacted authorities. A board of education spokeswoman said Driscoll was removed from the classroom in May 2011. In 2012, she was sentenced to six years probation with sex offender conditions.
Amy Victoria Beck
Amy Victoria Beck stunned officials when she walked into police headquarters in March 2010 and told detectives she had carried on a nine month affair with a 14-year-old former student. The 33-year-old former Burbank middle school teacher was sentenced to two years in a state prison.
Lisa Glide
Soap opera actress turned New Jersey high school drama teacher, Lisa Glide, was sentenced to five years probation after pleading guilty to having sex with a high school student twice off campus in 2008. But the supposed 17-year-old victim says he pursued her. According to MyCentralJersey.com, at Glide’s sentencing, the victim sent a letter on her behalf claiming “Lisa Glide was not a sexual predator.” She was sentenced to probation.
Heather Lynne Zeo
Heather Lynne Zeo, a North Penn School District high school math teacher in Pennsylvania, was suspended from her job for allegedly having sex with one of her students in the back seat of her family minivan and sending sexually explicit messages to another. Zeo is seen here arriving with her husband on July, 2009 for a hearing in district court in Lansdale, Pa.
She was sentenced in 2010 to one to 23 months in prison for having a sexual relationship with a student and having explicit conversations with another.
Amber Jennings
Amber Jennings, of Sturbridge, Mass., is shown at her arraignment Aug. 2004 in Dudley, Mass. The 30-year-old Shepherd Hill Regional High School teacher was accused of having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old student. She faced charges of inducing a minor under 18 “to have unlawful sexual intercourse” and sending him nude photos of herself.
On Sept. 2005, Amber Jennings pleaded guilty to “disseminating harmful materials to a minor,” in a plea agreement with prosecutors. According to court documents, she admitted emailing a 16-year-old student nude pictures of herself under the screen name “Redsox6606whore.”
On Sept. 2005, Amber Jennings pleaded guilty to “disseminating harmful materials to a minor,” in a plea agreement with prosecutors. According to court documents, she admitted emailing a 16-year-old student nude pictures of herself under the screen name “Redsox6606whore.”
Sandra Beth Geisel
Geisel, seen in this 2005 mug shot, made headlines again in 2006, but this time it was her bank president husband who was being accused of sexual misconduct. Geisel has since been released and made to register as a level one sex offender.
Pamela Rogers Turner
Pamela Rogers Turner, a small-town phys-ed teacher and former college basketball player, was busted for repeatedly having sex with a 13-year-old male student, including once in the school gym. Here she is being led from a McMinnville, Tenn. Court, Aug., 2005. She was sentenced to eight years, but told to serve only nine months.
In July 2006, Pamela Rogers was ordered by a Tenn. judge to seven years in jail for violating her probation on a sentence for having sex with a 13-year-old boy. At the hearing she said, “I am willing to do anything to rehabilitate myself.”
Yet in 2007, she received an extra two years for again sending nude photos to the boy. According to the Felony Offender Information Lookup website, she was released from the Tennessee Prison for Women in 2012 at age 35.
Mary Kay Letourneau-Fauulau
Former grade school teacher Mary Kay LeTourneau listens to testimony during a 1998 court hearing in Seattle. LeTourneau, then 35 and a married mother of four, was charged with child rape for her relationship with Vili Fualaau, who was in second grade when they met and 12 when their sexual affair began.
Mary Kay Letourneau had a baby with Vili Fualaau in July 1997 when he was 14. LeTourneau pleaded guilty to raping him on Aug. 1997 and served 7 1/2 years in prison.
After serving her sentence, Mary Kay Letourneau married her victim/lover, Vili Fualaau, and raised two children with him. Letourneau, now 52, and Fualaau, later poked fun at their situation by hosting a series of “Hot for Teacher” parties at a Seattle nightclub, according to CBS affiliate KVAL.
Amanda Caye Dreier
Police say 27-year-old Amanda Caye Dreier, a teacher at Ankeny High School in Iowa, and a former student of hers, 18, were found together in a car in June 2016. Police say an investigation turned up an ongoing sexual relationship between the two.
Police say the former student had recently graduated. Dreier, an English teacher, was charged with sexual exploitation by a school employee. State law prohibits employees from having relationships with students through 30 days following graduation.
Sex(uality) & the City 