Bad Love

Rachel Holt, 35, was a science teacher at Claymont Elementary School in Delaware. Last year, she was charged with an astounding 28 counts of first-degree rape, after she allegedly had sex with a 13 year-old boy and student of hers during an "intense weeklong affair" in her apartment.

Geez, I'll say it was intense. At an average of four encounters a day, I think Holt might have set a new Bad Love record. Delaware News Journal reports that she got busted by the boy's father, who overheard a phone conversation between Holt and his son. It seems that the tricky Holt had called the kid's dad's girlfriend, pretending to be his mother, and got permission for him to spend the week with her from March 24-31 (probably the elementary school's spring break.)

One of the boy's 12 year-old friends was also invited to the spring break child-assault party, and she gave them both beer, and in classic cool mom/teacher style, also found time between 28 counts of rape to let the 13 year-old drive her car.

She pleaded guilty to second-degree rape, and was sentenced last week to 10 years in prison. "I hope you can forgive me," she said at the sentencing. "I know what I did was wrong."

Posted by Amy at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Allenna Williams Ward, 23, was a middle school teacher in Clinton, SC. Yesterday she was arrested for criminal sexual contact and lewd behavior with minors.

Looks like Allenna was having sex with five boys ages 14 and 15, and the police suspect there may have been more. She was meeting these boys behind a restaurant, in a park, and in the school where she taught and some of the boys attended, as well as sometimes actually paying for a motel room.

She's married, and according to a blogger who knows her, Allenna and her family are all, you guessed it, "great Christian people". She got busted when school staff found a dirty note that she presumably wrote to one of the students she was involved with.

Posted by Amy at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Rebecca Poole was a drama teacher in Birmingham in the UK. Last fall, a relationship she had with a 15 year-old male student went from "being close and flirty to being inappropriate and unlawful" when they started having sex in her car.

The student apparently filmed one of their encounters with his cellphone, and his parents later saw the movie on his phone and called the cops. Poole denies that they were having a relationship, but explains the actual video footage that exists of her having sex with her underage student by saying that he made her do it: she told the police he was holding a screwdriver to the back of her head. You just can't see it in the movie.

A creative defense on the part of Ms. Poole the drama teacher, but it sounds like blaming the victim to me.

Posted by Amy at 01:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Roy Holt, 50, lives in Georgia and was, until recently, allegedly carrying on a relationship with a teenage girl, starting when she was 14.

Here are some things that Roy did:

1) got his teenage girlfriend pregnant (she's now 16),
2) freaked out when he feared she would go to the cops, probably because he was refusing to support her and the child,
3) hired a hit man to kill her, offering to pay him with "one or more mobile homes."

It looks like the girl and the child are still alive, and that the hit man didn't go through with it for whatever reason (he was holding out for an ATV?) Anyway, Roy got busted at his sister-in-law's house in Illinois. I'm guessing this means he's a married man, on top of everything else.

Posted by Amy at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Johnny Cuevas, 37, was a Spanish teacher at Randolph High School in Harlem. In 2005, he went on vacation to the Dominican Republic over spring break, and another teacher at his school saw him there, staying at the same hotel. But Cuevas was apparently vacationing with a special girlfriend--his student, Alenny Mercado, who was 18 at the time.

The teacher who says he saw the teacher and student together says he told their principal about it twice, but the principal brushed him off. When investigators started looking into the allegation, the principal brought Cuevas in for a meeting to get their stories straight over the MLK Day weekend earlier this year, paying him two days' salary for his time.

Cuevas and Alenny Mercado both deny that there was any relationship going on, though Mercado does say she was in the DR over Spring Break 2005 visiting relatives. She's now going to Fordham, and has refused to speak to investigators: "I spoke to someone, asking me questions, but I didn't know what it was about," she said. "The investigator wanted to meet with me, but I said no. He wouldn't tell me what it was about, and I was busy."

She also suggests that the accusing teacher, who is apparently black, was upset about "Latin culture" growing at the school, so attacked a Latino Spanish teacher as some sort of psycho-racial-sexual retaliation.

Cuevas is no longer teaching anyone irregular conjugation, but is doing administrative work during the investigation.

Posted by Amy at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Diane West, 52, was a Bayonne special ed teacher and guidance counselor whose affinity for young teenage boys went on almost entirely unchecked and unremarked upon for over 20 years at Bayonne High. She was accused of statutory rape in 2001, left her job, and finally pleaded guilty to sexual assault in 2005, but got off with just probation after her ex-colleagues and friends helped convince a judge of her good character.

The Times has a good piece on West's career as a teacher and counselor, and on her extra-curricular activities, which include groping a 13 year-old at a school dance in 1980, marrying a suicidal recent Bayonne High graduate in 1985 (when she was 31) who got her pregnant when he was in 11th grade, divorcing him in 1996, and then in 2001 taking up with one of her own son's friends, a 15 year-old whose parents for some reason allowed to move into her house.

What is this lady's problem? Well, for one thing, she says that she had an abusive boyfriend when she was 14, and that she got pregnant and gave her baby up for adoption. I think it's pretty obvious that this early relationship was the start of her fixation on young teenage boys, and it came up in the court's psychological evaluation of her.

And she also uses her difficult teenage experiences as an explanation for her adult behavior. According to the Times, "In talking about the relationships with a court-appointed psychiatrist last year, Ms. West said that when she took up with Steve and Chris, she thought it was acceptable because she had had a child at 14. Later, she said, she realized teenage boys can suffer emotional damage if they become sexually involved with an adult, especially an authority figure like a teacher."

No shit, Sherlock! But apparently her own boss saw her criminal sexual involvement with boys as just a foible, a part of West's personality, and not a dangerous and harmful act. “Diane has a thing for young boys,” said her former principal Daniel Doyle in a court statement.

West herself refused to be interviewed for the article.

Posted by Amy at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

If parents should be able to trust anyone with their kids, you'd think it would be THE GUY WHO RUNS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S EFFORTS TO KEEP KIDS SAFE.

But, apparently, Mark Foley couldn't be trusted. The gay/not-gay/gay congressman had too much love to give those pages, and now he's the second-most famous pederast ever.

BUT, say his lawyers, let's not forget who the real victim is here: Why, it's the much maligned, alcoholic, abused-by-his-reverend Mark Foley! Just because he's a congressman in charge of efforts to keep predators away from kids, that's no reason to think he could keep his own demons at bay! Besides, "Any suggestion that Mark Foley is a pedophile is false!"

AND, say the Republicans, let's not forget who the real bad guys are here: Why, it's those terrible child-buggering Democrats! Why, isn't there a gay Democratic congressman from Massachusetts around here somewhere? And that guy who did the same thing 33 years ago! It's THEIR fault! And Bill Clinton's!

Yep, it was all those LIBERAL DEMOCRATS who made Foley have AIM-sex with his former pages while waiting to cast his vote for the war funding.

Posted by ADM at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)