Prosecution Rests in 1970's Sex Abuse Case

This from the Herald-Leader, photos by Pablo Alcala.

Fayette school sex-abuse case gets new details

Maner testifies against former science teacher

For the early part of Monday afternoon in Fayette Judge James D. Ishmael Jr.'s courtroom, Carol Lynne Maner didn't look at the man the commonwealth had charged with raping her 30 years ago.

When Maner had to, she called him Mr. Hubbard. She was polite and quiet, wringing her hands.

But she gained some strength as the day wore on.

When special prosecutor Tom Smith asked her to describe the evening of her first sexual encounter with her ninth-grade science teacher, she turned to the defense table and called Jack Russell Hubbard by the name she had always called him, Russ. Then she told how, in the 1970s at Beaumont Junior High School, she'd turned to him for help when she was being molested by Roberta Blackwell, an art teacher, and he, in turn, introduced her to marijuana and heterosexual sex.

"He seemed compassionate," she said when Smith asked why she went to speak to him about her problems. "He said he was available to talk to me."

Maner described how Blackwell drove the 15-year-old girl to Hubbard's home and left her on his porch. She told how he beckoned her into his bedroom, taught her to roll and smoke a joint and how he allegedly said she needed a man to "take her
virginity."

Maner described herself as "in no position to refuse."

And this from H-L:

Woman testifies she, other teacher

had sexual relationships with former student

Roberta Blackwell Walter, long accused by a former student of repeated molestation, took the stand Tuesday in Fayette Judge James D. Ishmael's Jr.'s courtroom and admitted having sex with Carol Lynne Maner who was 15 at the time.

"I realize I was the adult, and she was the child," Walter told jurors. "I should have nipped it in the bud. I knew it was wrong."

The admission came in the trial of Jack Russell Hubbard, who is accused of first-degree rape of Maner and first-degree sodomy of Thomas "Beau" Goodman III while both were students at Beaumont Junior High School in the 1970s. Walter testified for the prosecution against Hubbard as part of a plea agreement that would reduce two felony charges against her, with likely prison time attached, to misdemeanor charges carrying only probation...

The commonwealth closed its case late in the morning. The defense begins its case Tuesday afternoon.