Maner Wins Fayette Sex Abuse Case on Appeal

KSN&C Backstory:

This from the Herald-Leader,

Appellate court upholds verdict

against Fayette schools

in sex-abuse lawsuit

The Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed Friday that the Fayette County Board of Education must award Carol Lynne Maner $3.7 million in her high-profile sex-abuse lawsuit against the district.

In 2007, a Fayette Circuit Court jury found that school officials in the late 1970s and early 1980s ignored allegations that Maner was sexually abused by four teachers, a guidance counselor and an assistant principal at Beaumont Junior High School and Lafayette High School. The jury's verdict is one of the largest awarded in Fayette County.

The school board had appealed the trial court's decision.

Maner said the appellate court's decision to uphold the 2007 verdict sends a message to school systems that "there's a problem, that this kind of thing happens, and they're not untouchable anymore." ...

In its appeal, the school board basically contended that the trial court had erred in failing to rule that the statute of limitations in the case had run out. But the appeals court rejected that argument.

Maner sued the district in 2003 on a civil rights claim and the Title IX Education Amendments of 1972, a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in educational institutions. She says she was essentially denied her right to an education and subsequently slid into depression and drug addiction from the alleged abuse...

NY Teacher Arrested Again For Sex With Student

This from WCBS TV; Photo by Sophia Chang at Newsday:

She was told to stay away, but police say she couldn't.

A Long Island teacher who lost her job after admitting she had sex with a 16-year-old boy has been arrested again. Prosecutors say Heather Kennedy ignored a judge's order and continued sleeping with the boy.

Kennedy was originally forced to quit her job as a math teacher at Wantagh High School after pleading guilty to sexual misconduct with her teenage student.

But acting on a tip, the Nassau County District Attorney's office began surveillance of the teacher at a Long Island Rail Road station where they say they discovered her in the back seat of a car, again having sex with the 16-year-old student.

Kennedy was re-arrested and this time charged with five counts of statutory rape, endangering a minor, and criminal contempt of a court order to stay away from the teenage boy. She had already been suspended, and was working from home in Massapequa.

Her lawyers said it was a one-time romance and she pleaded guilty, was fired and vowed never to see the boy again.

But the District Attorney Kathleen Rice said those promises were thrown out the window when the teacher lured and seduced the boy again and again in her car, home, and school parking lot...

AM New York's Rouges Gallery of Teacher Sex Scandals.

Pass The Trash

This from the Los Angeles Times:

It's not clear exactly when the relationship began.

Police were told the girl was 16 when she became intimate with Steve Thomas Rooney. Rooney allegedly met the girl when she was a student in his health class at the Foshay Learning Center.

The relationship continued when Rooney accepted a position last year as assistant principal at Fremont High in South L.A.

Rooney first drew police attention when he allegedly brandished a gun at the girl's stepfather, warning him to treat his daughters better.

When officers arrested Rooney, the school district removed him from Fremont and assigned him to a job away from students at the local district headquarters pending the outcome of the investigation.

He never returned to Fremont, but was placed at Markham Middle School last September.

Rooney, 39, was arrested last week and charged with five counts of forcible lewd acts on a 13-year-old Markham student.

Saying he hadn't "slept well in days," Los Angeles schools Supt. David L. Brewer told parents at Markham Middle School on Thursday that he is investigating "how a policy and system we have in place failed" ...

..."I am deeply, deeply sorry . . . for this incident," Brewer told a gathering of more than 100 parents and students who had come to hear an explanation of why Rooney was transferred to Markham despite the allegations.

Rooney was arrested in early 2007 after allegedly pulling a gun on the Foshay student's stepfather, but police said they did not file charges because the student was by then 18 and refused to cooperate.

Nevertheless, a written district policy makes clear that in cases where law enforcement drops an investigation into a district employee, the school system has "a heightened responsibility for the safety of its students" and should continue to investigate even if police do not file charges.

The mother, grandmother and stepfather of the girl from Foshay said Thursday that the school system never sought them out....

Lawmakers cracking down on abusive teachers

States pursuing new penalties, closing loopholes

Heeding a steady drumbeat of sexual misconduct cases involving teachers, at least 15 states are now considering stronger oversight and tougher punishment for educators who take advantage of their students.

Lawmakers say they are concerned about an increasingly well-documented phenomenon: While the vast majority of America's teachers are committed professionals, there also is a persistent problem with sexual misconduct in U.S. schools. When abuse happens, administrators too often fail to let others know about it, and too many legal loopholes let offenders stay in the classroom.

Advocates include governors, education superintendents and legislative leaders...

...The ideas emerging in state capitals come at a time when U.S. media have been reporting steadily on individual cases, along with more in-depth examinations of the problem...

...A nationwide Associated Press investigation published in October found 2,570 educators whose teaching credentials were revoked, denied, surrendered or sanctioned from 2001 through 2005 following allegations of sexual misconduct. Experts who track sexual abuse say those cases are representative of a much deeper problem because of underreporting...

...Some states are looking to increase penalties, expand background checks or broaden their ability to police charter schools for abuse, like Indiana, Massachusetts and Utah. Kentucky and South Carolina are considering making it illegal for teachers to have sex with older students.

Several states are tackling a major problem — the loopholes that allow problem teachers to move from one school district to another, or from one state to another. The AP investigation found that what education officials commonly call "passing the trash" happens when districts allow a teacher to quietly leave a school, or fail to report problems to state authorities, or fail to check with state authorities before hiring a teacher, among other glitches.

In eight states, legislators are pursuing changes to close those gaps, including California, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia, Washington state and West Virginia...

This from MSNBC.
Teachers found guilty of sexual assault include Debra LaFave of Florida.
Photo by Tim Boyles / Getty Images

Teacher sex with older teens not illegal in Kentucky

FRANKFORT, Ky. --Reacting to the case of a high school band teacher accused of having sex with a student, a Kentucky lawmaker has become the latest state legislator to propose changing a law governing the age of consent.

J.R. Gray, a Democrat from western Kentucky, was disturbed to learn that teachers break no criminal laws by having sex with students, as long as the student is at least 16 years old and a willing participant...

This from the Herald-Leader and Cincinnati Post.

Teacher 'had sex with pupil while driving bus'

This from the Telegraph:

The head of a school sixth form engaged in a sex act with one of his pupils while driving a school minibus, a court heard today.

Andrew Riley, a married father-of-two, spoke to a colleague on a mobile phone as the 17-year-old girl performed a further sex act upon him, Preston Crown Court was told. Giving evidence today, the alleged victim also described how the teacher allegedly gave her cocaine during two nights they spent together in a Manchester hotel.

"I'd gone to the toilet and he'd put the cocaine out in lines on the desk that was in the hotel room," she said. "Then Andrew did a line or two."

When asked if she had taken any, she replied: "Yes."

Riley, of Wentworth Drive, Lancaster, denies two counts of an abuse of trust and sexual activity with a child and a single count of offering to supply cocaine between May and July 2005.


It is alleged the head of sixth form at Baines High School in Poulton, Lancs told his wife he was attending a parents evening in order to meet the girl.

Dennis Watson, prosecuting, read out pages of Yahoo Instant Messages recovered from the girl's computer.

One message from the girl referred to their alleged minibus encounter: "How funny is it that some year 12s will be sitting where we had sex and I can't believe you spoke to Tindle on the phone... I'm impressed."

The court heard that she sent him a topless picture of her over the internet, and he sent a video to her.

She told the court: "It was a video of him removing his boxers, from the front. I was showing my breasts while he was showing everything."

Mr Watson said he sent her a message saying: "Can you believe you have got a video of the head of your year getting his shorts off?"

The girl allegedly wrote back saying "Trust me", to which he replied: "I have to because you could get me locked up."

The jury heard that Riley repeatedly told the girl to delete the videos he had sent, and wrote: "If this relationship goes tits up, you could batter me."

After the girl went away to study at Oxford, the relationship cooled and she eventually showed her old school the email messages. The police were then called in.

Riley told officers he "emphatically denies" having sex with the teenager or supplying her with cocaine.

He did not deny spending nights in hotels with her, but denied any sexual activity took place, the court heard.

Former Teacher who admitted sex with student, says she was held at gunpoint

Glasgow (AP) - A former middle school teacher who admitted to having a sexual relationship with a student says the student held her at gunpoint and forced her to drive them to Mexico with her young son in tow.

Angela Renee Comer, 28, accepted a 10-year prison sentence as part of an agreement with prosecutors after pleading guilty in May to one count of third-degree sodomy and one count of custodial interference.

Comer told the Glasgow Daily Times the student was trying to get away from a troubled home life and considering suicide when she picked him up at his house. She offered to take him to the courthouse. Instead, he took a gun out of her glove compartment and told her to drive.

Police said Comer took the boy, who is now 16, without his guardian's permission. Authorities found her, Comer's young son and the teen in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, on Jan. 10, 2006.

"He held me at gunpoint," she said. "I did try to get away from him twice. I attempted at a gas station once. The second time, the last time I tried to get away from him, he did have a guitar with him and it got busted over my head."

Comer said she was going through a difficult period at the time of the affair and that her relationship with the student was complicated...

This from WLEX TV.

Former S.C. teacher sentenced to 10 years for sex with student

LAURENS, S.C. (AP) — A former elementary school teacher pleaded guilty Friday to having sex with an 11-year-old student and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, a prosecutor said.

Wendie Ann Schweikert, 37, was arrested in May 2006 and charged with criminal sexual conduct with a minor and committing a lewd act on a minor. The case inflamed racial tensions because the student is black, and some black residents had argued that the teacher was getting lenient treatment by the courts.

This from USA Today.