What about when MOM is the abuser?

A few excerpts from the article on this case:


MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — A former Musselman High School teacher accused of having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old male student last year pleaded guilty on Thursday in circuit court to one count of sexual abuse by a person of trust.

Stephanie Jo Walters, 28, of Hedgesville, W.Va., is scheduled to be sentenced on June 28 by 23rd Judicial Circuit Judge Gina M. Groh, who “reluctantly” accepted a binding plea agreement in an emotion-filled hearing.

At the onset of Thursday’s hearing, Groh indicated that she was not going to accept the plea because Walters did not appear to take full responsibility for her actions based on a letter the court had received.

Groh said Walters made statements in a letter to the court indicating Walters did not accept full responsibility for her actions, didn’t believe she needed treatment and also lashed out at Berkeley County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Gregory Jones for being unfair to her.

“This is the worst response from a defendant (that wants probation) I believe that I have ever seen,” Groh said.

It is never a good sign when they blame others and refuse to take responsibility for their actions.  And there was this piece about the teen:

Before his encounter with Walters in a janitor’s closet at the school last year, “he was totally a different child” who had lots of friends and was outgoing, the woman told Groh from the courtroom gallery.

Now, he just goes into his room, and his adoptive grandmother said she struggles to get him to go out and do anything. - Read the entire article here

I wanted to talk about the Stephanie Ragusa case a little.  With her recently taking a plea deal and pleading guilty I thought it might be of interest to some people to look at how much was overlooked or ignored in her past leading up to these events.

Ragusa was arrested in March 2008 and charged with five counts of lewd and lascivious battery for acts against 14-year-old male student.  But there were red flags prior to this happening.  Ragusa's previous history included that she failed to disclose previous arrests on her job application and when the school district found out they hired her anyway.  She has a DUI and an Aggravated Battery charge that were both dropped but she was required to list them anyway. 

She was in the classroom for two years yet there were problems.  Her first year in the classroom, her principal reported her to the Child Abuse Hotline. Her second year, at her third school, that principal accused her of using profanity and telling students about her personal life.  And it gets worse from there.

According to the Tampa Tribune "In addition to the DUI and the battery arrests, on May 1, 2001, Ragusa was charged with first-degree petty theft, a misdemeanor. After she completed a pretrial intervention program in 2003 with the Salvation Army, prosecutors dismissed the charge. Failing to disclose information is not a reason to bypass a candidate, Linda Kipley, the district's general manager for professional standards, said. 

A school board member now suggests that any hiring procedure allowing a second chance should be reviewed. Ragusa's personnel file contains two letters of reprimand."

And it does not end here.  It just keeps going and going. 

She was arrested again in April on counts of sex with a minor and lewd and lascivious battery for another student when she taught at Davidson Middle School.  There was also some allegations that she lied on her resume as well.

Now after all that you would think it was over but no.  She was arrested again near the end of April.  She was apparently caught leaving the house of one of her victims.  According to police Ragusa had gone to the boy’s house to talk about her impending trial but the discussion ended up with the pair in bed. When Ragusa left the house the officers nabbed the 29-year-old and placed her back in jail.

And there was even more that went on during her time in jail.  Now she has taken a plea bargain and faces up to 10 years.  Her attorney had this to say:

At Ragusa's June sentencing, her attorney will argue for much less prison time. Herce says the two years Ragusa has already spent in jail is enough, especially when compared to similar cases. After having sex with a student, local teacher Debra Lafave avoided prison and was sentenced to house arrest and probation.

"I think comparatively speaking, she's (Ragusa) served a lot more time than most," said Herce. (source)

It is up to each person to decide for themselves if they think her two years in the county jail is enough time or not.  If it is fair or not.  Personally I think that Lafave should have gotten a much harsher sentence and I do not think two years is enough in this case.  Looking at the patterns of behavior prior to her plea deal says something.  And I am not in favor of just plain punishment.  I am in favor of trying to make sure that this person does not harm anyone again.

This article is another in a string of recent articles over the past 12 months that gives me hope that more people are becoming aware of and being made aware of female offenders:


Chicago - Four times recently adult women have been investigated on allegations of sexually abusing some of the state's most vulnerable teen boys— those living in child welfare facilities where they were seeking treatment for abuse, neglect or behavioral problems.

A 29-year-old teacher faces charges of having sex with a 15-year-old in Chicago. A 40-year-old instructor was convicted of having sex with a 16-year-old in a Mundelein institution. A 26-year-old Lake Villa therapist is scheduled to go on trial in April for accusations that she sexually assaulted a 14-year-old.

And now, River Forest police are investigating allegations that a woman in a care-giving role had sexual contact with a teen resident of a child welfare facility.

The string of incidents has raised concern among child welfare officials who wonder if more can be done to protect a fragile population from being preyed upon by the adults who are charged with caring for them.

"Kids in the system are abused and neglected. Their whole emotional and psychological state is often fragile or compromised. To have a therapist or someone in a position of trust like this either manipulate that fragility or take advantage of it, it's abhorrent," he said.

Experts say the public is largely unaware of the problem, in part because statistics show there are fewer female than male sex offenders and because the offenses contradict the perceptions of women as motherly and nurturing. Also, society has tended to wink at such relationships, some even considering the young men lucky to get sexual attention from a more experienced woman.

In Illinois, sexual exploitation of children by teachers and counselors is "unfortunately nothing new," said Kendall Marlowe, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

"We must treat these crimes very seriously regardless of whether the perpetrator is a man or a woman," he added. - Read the entire article here

I find it good to see more and more articles showing up that look at these issues:


Child predators can be anywhere, and now we are learning child predators can be anyone.

"The conversation has come up lately because we have charged more than normal in the last several years."

About a half dozen women- all in authority positions- accused of molesting the kids who trust them.

Most recently sentenced, Alison Peck, convicted of having sex with a teen she taught at Greenfield High School, and Monday Laura Kirkland will be sentenced for molesting two children, a16-year-old she taught at Christian Schools in Springfield and a 9-year-old boy she babysat.

It's likely there are others we haven't heard about.

"What the national research will tell you is that under-reporting among sexual abuse victims is very high."

Possibly highest for young males, according to Assistant Greene County Prosecuting Attorney Jill Patterson.

She participated in a training course focused on the female teacher as a sexual abuser, a criminal she says is often under-estimated.

"You even see judges quoted from sentencing these women saying 'I don't think she's a danger,'" Patterson explains. - Read the entire article here

Thsi is a case of a former day care worker and teacher at a christian school. For those that think that private schools or religious schools are a safe haven think again:


Missouri - A former day care worker and teacher was sentenced to seven years in prison Monday after she pleaded guilty to statutory rape and sodomy.

"Everyone was pleased with the outcome -- everyone on our side," said Jill Patterson, assistant Greene County prosecuting attorney. "I thought it was just, the families thought it was just."

Laura Kirkland was accused of having sexual intercourse and oral sex with a boy she baby-sat from ages 8 to 10. She was also accused of statutory sodomy with a 16-year-old family friend.
Kirkland was a former employee of Nurturing Place in Springfield and Christian Schools of Springfield. Both employers told the News-Leader they were shocked and upset when Kirkland was charged in 2008. - Read the entire article here

The article below is about a teacher that was sentenced to 20 years for her actions against a 13 year old student. What really irks me is the title of the article where it says "sentenced to 20 years for seducing 13-year old student". Why is it so hard for these places to just label it what it is and that is sexual assault.


BOISE, Idaho - (CBS) Ashley Jo Beach expressed her remorse and apologized to her family and community for breaking their trust before she was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her relationship with a 13-year-old boy.

Prosecutors said Beach had targeted the boy from their first contact in April when he was only 12.

"She began grooming him when he was in 6th grade and she was his teacher," said Jean Fisher, the prosecuting attorney. "The grooming was methodical and it was calculated."

This is the piece that every parent should learn about. Grooming him starting when he was 12. It gets worse:

Prosecutor Fisher said Ashley Jo Beach bought the boy shoes and clothes and admitted she loved and needed the boy who she called the "light of her life."

She also wanted him to mow her lawn and babysit her three children, according to prosecutors

Beach has admitted the relationship lasted over the summer and that they even had sex in her classroom with the door locked. - Read the entire article here


So just when you think your son or daughter is safe at school with a female teacher, think again. These things happen much more often than most people think and according to a study listed on this Blogs side bar, women are doing this almost as much as men in a school setting.

This is a follow up post and article about the Liskey case from the last post:


KS - Nationwide, female teachers who sexually abuse boys get probation more frequently while male teachers go to prison, says Topeka police Detective Heather Stultz-Lindsay.

Why the difference?

People view boys as the "pursuer, boys are the aggressor" and not as the victim, said Stultz-Lindsay, who investigated the Jennifer Dawn Liskey case. "That's not true. The woman can be the sexual aggressor."

"In society, we look at boys and pat them on the back and say, 'Good scoring with a woman,' " said Stultz-Lindsay.

Put another way, people minimize boys as victims of sexual assault when the perpetrator is an older woman, said Susan Voorhees, a doctor of clinical psychology whose patients include child victims. People smirk when word gets out an underage boy had sex with an older woman.

"Everyone has their fantasies," Voorhees said, as in, " 'It would have been nice to have had some older woman teach me the ways of the world.' "

Often the perpetrator is a member of the family or someone trusted by the family, and for the child, the abuser "may be one of the kindest people in their lives." In the Liskey case, there was a double whammy because she was a paraprofessional in the victim's gifted education program at Robinson Middle School and the best friend of the boy's mother, Voorhees said.

"It's not the face of evil," the psychologist said of abusers. "It's the actions of evil."

It is to bad the judge did not see it that way.


In sentencing Liskey to probation, Shawnee County District Court Judge Jan Leuenberger said there was no evidence the victim suffered in the relationship. The judge also said the youth is "dealing with the situation fine," and concerns by his parents that he might "crash" in the next four to six years are "speculative."

"Sexual abuse has lifelong implications for the mental health of both victims and their families," Voorhees said in a letter dated Sept. 14 to Chief Judge Nancy Parrish to express her "grave concern" about the Liskey sentencing. - Read the entire article here

The Judge really needs to be taken to task for comments like that. As the study I posted previously on here called Long Term Effects of Sexual Abuse by a Female showed that the Judge is dead wrong and Ms. Voorhees is correct.

I wanted to comment on a recent article about a 39 year old woman who sexually assaulted a 13 year old boy and was given probation:


Probation sends bad message

Placing Jennifer Dawn Liskey on probation for crimes tied to an illegal sexual affair with a boy who was 13 when it started sent a poor message to adolescent victims of sex abuse, says a Topeka psychologist specializing in treating children.

"The message is, 'Don't tell,' " said Susan Voorhees, a doctor of clinical psychology who has treated sex abuse victims for almost 30 years. "The message is, 'You can get away with this.' "
Earlier this month, Shawnee County District Judge Jan Leuenberger placed Liskey, 39, on intensive supervised probation for three years after she pleaded no contest Jan. 23 to two counts of aggravated indecent liberties and one count of aggravated criminal sodomy. As part of the probation, she is to undergo therapy.

In placing Liskey on probation, the judge said she had an emotional disorder, lacked maturity to end the relationship, dressed and acted like an adolescent, lacked control over the victim, and couldn't say "no" to him. Evaluations of Liskey found she has issues centering on personality disorder dependent/immature and with schizoid features, the judge said.

"When (children) hear judges say you get probation (and) when they see the judges don't punish the perpetrators, it gives a very bad message for kids," Voorhees said. "It really concerns me."

Boys who are victims and their families will ask what is the point of pursuing a case against a sexual offender? Voorhees said.

Voorhees contends Liskey should have gone to prison based on Kansas sentencing guidelines. As part of a plea agreement between Liskey and the Shawnee County District Attorney's Office, she could have faced three concurrent prison terms of 55 to 61 months.

"I am very concerned about the impact of the Liskey sentencing on not only her victim but the other victims out in our community who will be reluctant to come forward, will be reluctant to admit they have participated, and may be reluctant to admit it has hurt them," Voorhees wrote in a letter to Chief Judge Nancy Parrish complaining about the sentence.

I agree with her. Many offenders have various mental health issues but that does not keep them out of prison and I seriously doubt that if this was a 39 year old "immature" male who was abusing a 13 year old girl that he would have been given probation.


Incarceration wasn't the answer for Liskey, psychologist William Albott said. Albott is one of two psychologists who testified on behalf of Liskey, urging Leuenberger to place her on probation rather than imprisoning her.

"I don't know what purpose would be served by sending her to prison," Albott said. "I can't think of anything positive to come out of her going to prison other than to satisfy a need on the part of society to punish."

Liskey's sentence is "equitable," Albott said. "She's being punished, but she's not being punished unduly."

He also thinks Liskey's punishment is fair to the victim. - Read the entire article here

A hired gun. I would like Mr. Liskey to tell me how he thinks the sentence is fair to the victim? The victim sure did not seem to think it is fair when he said:

"It sends the wrong message to teachers and to people everywhere," he said. Instead of probation, Liskey should have received three years in prison to force her to go through a treatment program for sexual offenders, he said.

"She has a way of making excuses for anything and everything," he said. Since he was 13, the youth said he has had emotional problems and hasn't genuinely felt anything other than emotional complacency.

"Today I was very upset," he said. "This was the angriest I've been in years." With the Liskey probation sentence, "I'm just kind of left hanging."

His parents also are angry.

"You can steal the innocence of a 13-year-old child," his mother said. "There is no punishment" in Wednesday's sentence. Liskey and the mother, who knew nothing of the sexual relationship, were best friends.

"How does a 13-year-old boy coerce a 34-year-old woman into kissing and groping?" the youth's father said.

When the mother earlier told the judge the impact the offenses had had on her family, she said Liskey often would go into a "poor Jennifer" mode indicating she was being victimized.

"Once again, it was 'poor Jennifer,' and the judge fell for it," the father said of the sentencing.

"This was totally a case of blaming the victim," the father said, referring to the judge's reference to Liskey as being emotionally immature and the victim being intellectually gifted, wanting her back when she tried to end the affair and becoming a "participant in the conduct." - Read the entire article here

Here is another article in which the attorney blames the victim. Regardless of the genders involved this kind of thing really irks me when I see it done:


TX - A 39-year-old former Orangefield Junior High teacher and coach is behind bars for ten years.

Jennifer Burton finalized her plea deal with prosecutors this afternoon when she pleaded guilty to two charges of sexual assault and one charge of improper relationship with a student.

While the now convicted sex offender, 39-year-old Jennifer Burton, had no comment for KFDM just after she entered her guilty plea in an orange county courtroom, her defense attorney had just the opposite.

Attorney Larry Hunter said, "She had a very stellar lifestyle, she was an asset to the community, very good person, but unfortunately, fell into this situation with a victim who was not only a participant, an active participant, but was actually an instigator for the sexual contact."

That last paragraph sounds just like so many offenders. Ooops she just fell into this situation and being almost 40 did not know any better or how to set proper boundaries with a 14 year old girl. This also sounds like the excuses made in many of the clergy sexual abuse cases.


Hunter said, "She's not 100% responsible for what happened, she's serving a 100% of the sentence and that's where I think we as a society have somewhat failed."

She is 100% responsible for what happened. At least the prosecutor gets it.

"She is a 100% criminally responsible, it is inappropriate and improper to imply a child victim should be prosecuted or even help responsible for this act," said Orange County Assistant District Attorney Cory Kneeland.

Kneeland says Burton is a child molester, plain and simple, and she's hurt more than the victim.

He said, "She violated the trust, not only of a family relationship, she was a mother figure to this child, she violated the trust of all mothers everywhere in taking care of a child and she violated the trust of all teachers everywhere." - Read the entire article here

This story pretty much speaks for itself. Probation for a "rape" conviction seems to me to be an awful light sentence:


NY - A Queens public school teacher pleaded guilty to second-degree rape charges Tuesday for having sex with a 14-year-old student.

Melissa Weber, 28, was sentenced to time served, 10 years probation and has to register as a sex offender for the next 20 years.

The social studies teacher had sex with the male student seven times in an empty second-floor classroom at Middle School/Intermediate School 8 in Jamaica between April 13 and May14. - Read the entire article here

Another case of a female pedophile. This one was a teacher and abused one of her elementary school students:


WA - There was no debate over Jennifer Rice’s sentence. Under state statute, the only prison term possible for the former Tacoma school teacher, convicted of sex crimes involving a 10-year-old student and his older brother, was 25 years to life in prison.

Prosecutors contended that Rice had a sexual relationship with the 10-year-old boy for several months while she was a teacher at Tacoma’s McKinley Elementary School. The ordeal came to light in August 2007, when Rice sneaked the boy out of his home and drove him to Ellensburg. The two had sex at a rest stop before she returned him to his home, court documents alleged.

During the course of the investigation, detectives learned Rice also had sex twice with the boy’s older brother in July 2007. The boy was 15 at the time. - Read the entire article here

With more and more stories appearing about teachers being caught sexually abusing students I wanted to go a little more into depth by looking at part of a 2004 study that was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education titled "Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature" by Virginia Commonwealth University Professor Charol Shakeshaft.

To tie this in with female offenders there is the excerpt below:

In studies that ask students about offenders, sex differences are less than in adult reports. The 2000 AAUW data indicate that 57.2 percent of all students report a male offender and 42.4 percent a female offender with the Cameron et al. study reporting nearly identical proportions as the 2000 AAUW data (57 percent male offenders vs. 43 percent female offenders).

In some of these cases the behaviors and patterns that occur are not understood or are misunderstood. This can and does lead to the victims being treated very poorly by some people and in effect being abused even more. Here are some more excerpts that talk about this:

sexual abusers in schools use various strategies to trap students. They lie to them, isolate them, make them feel complicit, and manipulate them into sexual contact. Often teachers target vulnerable or marginal students who are grateful for the attention. And, students that adults regard as marginal are also unlikely to be accepted as credible complainants against a celebrated teacher (Shakeshaft and Cohan, 1994).

In elementary schools, the abuser is often one of the people that students most like and that parents most trust. The abusers of children younger than seventh grade have different patterns than those who abuse older children (Shakeshaft, 2003). The educators who target elementary school children are often professionally accomplished and even celebrated. Particularly compared to their non-abusing counterparts, they hold a disproportionate number of awards. It is common to find that educators who have been sexually abusing children are also the same educators who display on their walls a community “Excellence in Teaching” award or a “Teacher of the Year” certificate. This popularity confounds district officials and community members and prompts them to ignore allegations on the belief that “outstanding teachers” cannot be abusers (Shakeshaft and Cohan, 1994).

I would point out that this also happens with middle and high school teachers as well. And the more popular the teacher the more the victim is usually attacked by various groups.

Because most educator abusers seek to conceal their sexual contact with students, offenders often target students that they can control. In some cases, control is characterized by force. However, most abuse occurs within the much subtler framework of grooming and enticement. While almost all children respond to positive attention from an educator, students who are estranged from their parents, who are unsure of themselves, who are engaged in risky behavior or whose parents are engaged in such behavior are often targeted, not only because they might be responsive but also because they are more likely to maintain silence (Robins, 2000; Shakeshaft and Cohan, 1994).

Robins (2000) describes the process of grooming, where an abuser selects a student, gives the student attention and rewards, provides the student with support and understanding, all the while slowly increasing the amount of touch or other sexual behavior. The purpose of grooming is to test the child’s ability to maintain secrecy, to desensitize the child through progressive sexual behaviors, to provide the child with experiences that are valuable and that the child won’t want to lose, to learn information that will discredit the child, and to gain approval from parents (Robins, 2000). Grooming allows the abuser to test the student’s silence at each step. It also serves to implicate the student, resulting in children believing that they are responsible for their own abuse because, “I never said stop.”

The grooming process that happens is a very important piece if someone wants to understand some of the often asked questions when these cases come up.

This next piece is a key piece and one often seen when the offender is female:

Some of the children who are sexually abused by educators do not characterize what is happening as abuse. That is not to say they don’t identify what is happening as shameful, unwanted, wrong, or frightening. In many cases, they are told that what is happening is love. Many abusers of children at all ages couch what they are doing to the children as love, both romantic and parental.

You can look at some of the recent cases that have been profiled on here or other sites and you will see that the talk of "love" is often brought up in cases where the offender is female.

Offenders work hard to keep children from telling. Almost always they persuade students to keep silent either by intimidation and threats (if you tell, I’ll fail you), by exploiting the power structure (if you tell, no one will believe you), or by manipulating the child’s affections (if you tell, I’ll get in trouble; if you tell, I won’t be able to be your friend anymore).

Thus, childish or adolescent naiveté is taken advantage of to keep children silent. Because many children who are targeted have previously been abused by others, the legacy of abuse increases the likelihood of silence. Fear of discovery and punishment or shame for doing something forbidden also keep children from speaking.

These next two pieces are crucial for people to know and understand:

Because children often get something positive in the transaction—attention, gifts, physical pleasure, and feelings of belonging or attractiveness—they can be made to feel responsible. Offenders use this to their advantage.

Finally, abuse is allowed to continue because even when children report abuse, they are not believed. Because of the power differential, the reputation difference between the educator and the child, or the mindset that children are untruthful, many reports by children are ignored or given minimal attention.

I have personally witnessed these things happen in a few cases I was exposed to and eventually became involved with. I watched the victims be ruthlessly attacked for reporting what happened to them. Lets look at the next excerpts that talk about this:

Robins (2000) found that the most common reason that students don’t report educator sexual misconduct is fear that they won’t be believed. Research indicates that students have good reasons to suspect they won’t be believed. Robins documents the case of a teacher, Kenneth DeLuca, who was convicted of sexually abusing 13 students between the ages of 10 and 18 over a period of 21 years. Nearly all of the students reported this abuse at the time. However, school officials did not take these accusations seriously.

Overwhelmingly, the girls experienced a disastrous response when they told about DeLuca’s behavior. Many were disbelieved, some were told to leave schools, parents were allegedly threatened with lawsuits (129-130).

And anytime there is an allegation of sexual abuse there is almost always the comment about false allegations. So what did this study find?:

The possibility of a false accusation is included in this section because there is widespread belief that false accusations are common. Because this is the prevailing mental model, students are often not believed.

Currently, there is no mechanism for determining how many false accusations occur. Because many of the accusations involve behavior that might not be easily prosecuted under criminal statutes, for instance verbal and visual abuse or physical abuse that is not penetration, there is confusion about what constitutes abuse. While this issue will be explored in more detail in a subsequent section, the distinction between a criminal offense that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and an incident of sexual misconduct is sometimes blurred, leaving the impression that if there is not a prosecution (or a criminal charge), the accusation must have been false.

This next part has to make a person wonder:

In the Shakeshaft and Cohan (1995) study of 225 allegations of educator sexual misconduct, there was not one in which the actions reported weren’t proved to have happened. Although the accuracy of student reports of educator behavior was unanimous, the meaning of the behavior differed between student and educator. In a handful of cases, the student’s characterization of the act as sexual misconduct was labeled by the educator and administrative officials as touching with no sexual intent.

I did a purely unscientific study by looking at over 800+ completed cases that have been reported in the media in the past few years. The results of those cases break down to 769 guilty, 20 not guilty, 26 charges dismissed. With that said here is another excerpt:

However, both Robin (1992) and Yates (1991) have pointed out that false accusations can cause serious emotional stress to the person falsely accused. Olson and Lawler (2003) have compiled cases in which educators have been falsely accused of maltreatment of students, including accusations of sexual abuse. Their accounts describe the harm that false accusations coupled with inadequate investigations can yield.

And finally I wanted to post some excerpts from the report that talk about the consequences to the abusive educators (what they are talking about is so common that is has its own slang term called passing the trash):

In an early study of 225 cases of educator sexual abuse in New York, all of the accused had admitted to sexual abuse of a student but none of the abusers was reported to authorities and only 1 percent lost their license to teach (Shakeshaft and Cohan, 1994). All of the accused had admitted to physical sexual abuse of a student but only 35 percent received a negative consequence for their actions: 15 percent were terminated or, if not tenured, they were not rehired; and 20 percent received a formal reprimand or suspension. Another 25 percent received no consequence or were reprimanded informally and off-the-record. Nearly 39 percent chose to leave the district, most with positive recommendations or even retirement packages intact.

Of those who left, superintendents reported that 16 percent were teaching in other schools and that they had no idea what the other 84 percent were doing. A recent report on sexual abuse in New York City indicates that 60 percent of employees who were accused of sexual abuse were transferred to desk jobs at offices inside schools and 40 percent of these teachers were repeat offenders (Campanile and Montero, 2001). In many instances, agreements are made to avoid legal battles with the alleged abuser (Shakeshaft and Cohan, 1994).

Several investigative reports have publicized individual cases and the response by districts to allegations of educator sexual misconduct. For instance, O’Hagen and Willmsen report that of 159 Washington state coaches “who were reprimanded, warned, or let go in the past decade because of sexual misconduct . . . at least 98 of them continued coaching or teaching afterward.” (Dec. 15, 2003) Many school districts make confidential agreements with abusers, trading a positive recommendation for a resignation.

In another example, O’Hagen (2004) reports that a Seattle educator, Luke Markishtum, had two decades of complaints of sex with students and providing alcohol and marijuana to students prior to his arrest for smuggling six tons of marijuana into the state. The district paid Markishtum the remainder of his salary that year, agreed to keep the record secret, and gave him an additional $69,000.

And while recently some States have made changes to address these issues it does not appear that changes have been made in lines with the recommendations that this report produced. You can read the recommendations for yourself in the report and I urge everyone to do so.

I wanted to do a post about this case because it shows a case in which there were red flags and concerns at various different schools over the years and it ended with this teacher abducting and raping a 10 year old boy. With society often having such biased views about female offenders it frequently allows them to operate for years or forever without them being caught or action taken.


TACOMA, Wash. - A former grade school teacher was convicted Monday of abducting one of her students, age 10, and raping him and his 15-year-old brother.

Both sides stipulated the facts in Pierce County Superior Court, and Judge D. Gary Steiner convicted 33-year-old Jennifer Leigh Rice of first-degree kidnapping with sexual motivation, first-degree child molesting and two counts of third-degree child rape.

The judge found that Rice took a 10-year-old student she taught in her first year at McKinley Elementary School from his home in Tacoma, drove more than 100 miles and had sex with him at a rest area on Interstate 90 on Aug. 11, 2007. She also was convicted of having sex with his 15-year-old brother in the previous month.

After her arrest, Rice said she'd had sex with the boy four or five times previously, including once when she sneaked into his house while his parents were asleep, according to a police affidavit. - Read the entire article here


The article also talks about various problems Rice had through out her career at different schools over the years and these problems mainly revolved around questionable behaviors with students.

And to follow up the last two articles I wanted to post part of an article from Momlogic.com. Note the use of the Teacher/Lover category (you can read the entire article here):



Dr. Michelle Golland: It seems almost every day we are hearing about another young teenage boy seduced into an "affair" with an older woman who was his teacher, coach, or the mom of his best friend. Make no mistake: these women are sexual predators and it is high time our society starts treating them as such.

First, you must know that the women who fall into the "Teacher/Lover" category of female sexual offenders are highly manipulative and groom their victims in a similar way to male sexual predators. They pick vulnerable kids who are looking for attention and approval that may seem lacking within their own home environment.

These female sexual predators want power and control and admiration from their victim. The young prepubescent or adolescent boys are easily manipulated due to their own lack of self-esteem and confusion and insecurities that many teens experience. The fact that adolescence is when they pull away from their parents and want to forge a new identity makes teens easy prey for these abusive women.

Dr. Golland is a USC graduate and a licensed Clinical Psychologist (PSY#16974). She works with adults, teens and is an expert in the field of marriage and relationships. Dr. Golland has given her expert advice on CNN, HLN, MSNBC, ABC, and Fox news. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and wonderfully exhausting two children.


I would add that you will find that there are male offenders who fit this same category and want power, control and admiration from their victim. In fact if you just flip the genders mentioned it would be right for some cases. I agree with Dr. Golland but I wonder when or if anyone is ever going to point out how offensive and potentially hurtful calling one's abuser a "teacher/lover" can be and how they may want to change that title to something else.

This is a case that I am posting mainly because of what the defense attorney had to say about the victim. Notice the teacher is 30, married with children and the victims teacher and later his babysitter and that the victim was 13. Her and her husband both blamed the victim and tried to claim the victim sexually assaulted her but that fell apart when she was on the stand:


A former Strickland Middle School teacher was sentenced to five years in prison Friday on a charge of aggravated sexual assault of a child in connection with a sexual relationship she had with a 13-year-old male student in 2007.

Lauren Cosgrove, 30, of Sanger, also was sentenced to two years in prison on a charge of tampering with a witness. Though she had been court-ordered not to contact the boy, he testified that she picked him up outside his house in December 2008 and convinced him to write a letter saying he lied about what happened between them.

On the stand, Lauren Cosgrove described herself as an overachiever. She taught English at Strickland, she said, and had been asked by school authorities to mentor the boy because he was brilliant but troubled.

She needed money, and when school was out for the summer, she agreed to the request made by the boy’s mother to baby-sit the three children, she said. Under Winfield’s questioning, Cosgrove said she has “boundary issues.” She did not set proper boundaries with the boy and allowed him to think it was OK to hug and kiss her, she said. She admitted to enjoying his attention.

She told the story of the day of the sex act much differently than the boy. In her version, the boy sexually assaulted her, she said.

But under cross-examination from Piel, Cosgrove admitted she did not tell the boy to stop.

“I didn’t want to bruise his ego,” she said.

Winfield told jurors that if given probation, Cosgrove would not be a risk, and that the boy enjoyed the attentions of an older woman and was not traumatized.

“It’s different with boys and girls,” she said. “I don’t believe he’s going to be scarred for life.” - Read the entire article here


I hope that some of the various organizations out there that assist rape victims will e-mail that attorney and set her straight.

I am sure anyone reading this blog has probably heard about this already. What does this kind of thing say about our society and its views on Female Offenders? I am hoping the various advocate groups will step up and make an outcry about this. For someone who served 7 1/2 years for raping a 13 year old to then turn around and publicly do this, 3 times now, is wrong. This is not something to "have some fun with".


SEATTLE - Mary Kay Letourneau and her former sixth-grade student — the father of her two youngest children — are hosting a "Hot for Teacher" night at a Seattle nightclub.

Letourneau, now 47, served 7 1/2 years in prison after she was convicted of raping Vili Fualaau, now 26. They were married four years ago this week.

The bar's owner said Letourneau has served her sentence, she's married her former student, and it's OK for them to have some fun on a Saturday night.

Mike Morris, owner of Fuel Sports Eats & Beats, said this is the third time Letourneau and Fualaau have hosted a "Hot for Teacher" night at the nightclub. - Read the entire article here

This case started in July 2008. And if this case does not shatter people's perceptions I am not sure what will:


Laura Kirkland, 25, a fifth-grade teacher at Christian Schools of Springfield, in Springfield, Missouri was arrested on charges of rape and sodomy of an 11-year-old boy, who she baby sat and allegedly sexually abused for two years (he was 8 at the the time of the alleged offense)

Allegedly Kirkland had sexually assaulted the child with both intercourse and oral sex with the boy repeatedly for two years when the boy was between 8 to 10 years old. The the alleged incident are said to have taken place in Kirkland’s home and when she was baby sitting the alleged victim.

Her bond had been set at $75,000 and conditioned upon her having no contact with the victim or any child under 17. In Sept 2008 at her intial court appearance she pled not guilty and the police alleged that she had confessed to the crimes (you can view the Court Document here)


And now she is in court AGAIN for ANOTHER charge with a different minor. If it turns out she is guilty of what she is accused of the judge who lowered the bond is going to look poorly as the prosecution objected to the bond being lowered.


A Springfield woman accused of having a sexual relationship with a minor will hear the charges against her today.

Laura Kirkland is charged with second degree statutory sodomy. According to Springfield police, Kirkland was sexually involved with a teenager.

Court documents say the relationship started with a 16-year-old student while Kirkland was teaching at a Springfield school.

In a separate case, Kirkland is charged with statutory rape and two counts of statutory sodomy. She is accused of having sexual contact with a child she was babysitting. - Read the entire article here

Teachers for April 2009:


MD -- A former Montgomery County Public Schools teacher recently pleaded guilty to a sexual offense involving a 16-year-old male student at a Rockville school for emotionally disturbed children.

The woman, Lindsey H. Froehlich, 27, of the 13100 block of Shadyside Lane in Germantown, was sentenced to three years probation including six months in a pre-release center on April 16. Froehlich was a teacher at the John L. Gildner Regional Institute for Children and Adolescents, or RICA, where the offense occurred. - Read the entire article here


Mount Clemens -- A former high school teacher accused of engaging in sex acts with two students on a boat last summer in St. Clair Shores has been sentenced in Macomb Circuit Court to five years probation. Macomb Circuit Judge Matthew Switalski rendered the sentence on Melissa Lavender, 32, earlier today. - Read the entire article here


DENTON – A former Strickland Middle School teacher was sentenced Friday to five years in prison on a charge of aggravated sexual assault of a child in connection with a sexual relationship she had with a 13-year-old male student in 2007.

Lauren Cosgrove, 30, of Sanger also was sentenced to two years in prison on a charge of tampering with a witness. Though the court had ordered her not to contact the boy, he testified that she picked him up outside his house in December 2008 and persuaded him to write a letter saying he lied about what happened between them. - Read the entire article here


BUFFALO, N.Y. - A former Buffalo schoolteacher has been sentenced to four years in prison for having a sexual dalliance with a 14-year-old student.

Cara Dickey said at her sentencing Thursday that she was "a good person who made a mistake." - Read the entire article here



JAY STREET — A Brooklyn junior high school teacher who pled guilty yesterday to rape was caught after she told a coworker about her tryst with the 13-year-old boy.

Marcia Amsterdam, 32, had oral and vaginal intercourse with the teen in 2006. She was sentenced yesterday to 10 years of probation by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Martin Murphy. A court order of protection will prevent Amsterdam from seeing her victim, and she must register as a sex offender The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office objected to the sentence because Amsterdam will not serve any jail time, according to spokesman Jonah Bruno. - Read the entire article here


TACOMA, Wash. -- A former grade school teacher was convicted Monday of abducting one of her students, age 10, and raping him and his 15-year-old brother.

Both sides stipulated the facts in Pierce County Superior Court, and Judge D. Gary Steiner convicted 33-year-old Jennifer Leigh Rice of first-degree kidnapping with sexual motivation, first-degree child molesting and two counts of third-degree child rape. - Read the entire article here


BOISE - A former Borah High School teacher accused of having sex with a student has admitted to having sex with a student. Michelle Farley, 40, changed her plea in court to guilty in a plea deal with prosecutors.

Farley was charged with eight counts of sexual battery with a minor late last year. In the deal, Farley pleaded guilty to just one count. Prosecutors say the sex acts did not occur on school grounds. - Read the entire article here


NEW PORT RICHEY -- Lisa Marinelli, a former Pasco County substitute teacher accused last year of having a sexual relationship with a student, pleaded guilty in court this morning.

She faced up to 15 years in prison but avoided any time behind bars. Instead, prosecutors and her defense attorney agreed to a stringent probationary sentence that includes a year of house arrest and no contact with children under 18 without supervision. - Read the entire article here


HARRISONBURG - A one-time Turner Ashby High School student-teacher, accused of having a romantic relationship with one of her students days after she left her job, pleaded guilty Thursday in Rockingham County Circuit Court.

In a plea agreement, Ashley Esposito, 25, of Harrisonburg, pleaded guilty to felony sodomy and misdemeanor contributing to the delinquency of a minor. - Read the entire article here


PHOENIX -- A former west Valley coach who admitted to a relationship with a student may only spend a weekend in jail. Susan Anderson was sentenced late last week after she pled guilty to one count of sexual conduct with a minor.

Anderson was 28 years old at the time of her arrest last February. She coached volleyball and basketball at Desert Edge High School last year. Police say the victim was a 15-year-old girl she coached. - Read the entire article here


CUMBERLAND — Former Mountain Ridge High School teacher Autumn Leathers was sentenced Thursday in Allegany County Circuit Court to a suspended one-year jail term and ordered to register as a sex offender for a sexual relationship she had with one of her students.

Judge W. Timothy Finan sentenced Leathers, who pleaded guilty to one count of fourth-degree sex offense in January as part of a plea agreement that included dismissal of all other charges. - Read the entire article here

I wanted to post this story because of some comments I have heard on various shows about the recent Sandra Cantu case. I have yet to see a show or news story that has accurately discussed the numbers when it comes to female offenders and sexual abuse of children. Instead all to often I see something along the lines of it being said that it is rare for a woman to abduct and murder a child. While that may be true but things change if you drop the word "abduct".

Let us look at some statistics briefly:

One in six adult men reported being sexually molested as children, and -- in a surprise finding -- nearly 40 percent of the perpetrators were female, a new study found. (Source Link)

According to the Department of Health and Human Services Administration on Children, Youth and Families, 62.3% of child abuse perpetrators and 62.8% of child homicide perpetrators are women. And the lower the child's age, the more likely it is that his/her abuser/killer is female.

In the documentary When Girls Do It they mentioned that out of 1,000 people who disclosed being sexually abused by a woman only 4 ever officially reported it. That is, unless my math is off, less than 1/2 a percent. And those that do report it are often not believed.

And throughout this blog you can find more references/links/data as well.

Now lets look at this story and consider what would have happened if she had been successful at the suicide pact she had with her abducted victim. And notice the victims words that were read in court:


Cara L. Dickey’s teenage rape victim didn’t appear in court Wednesday, but his pain and anger filled the courtroom as his two-page statement was read to the judge.

On a day when tears were shed on both sides of the courtroom and in the spectator section, State Supreme Court Justice John L. Michalski sentenced Dickey to four years in prison on her guilty plea to two statutory rape charges.

Before the sentencing, prosecutor Kristin A. St. Mary read the letter from the boy, now 15, whom Dickey has admitted raping twice.

“This lady is sick and selfish. She really had me not even caring about anyone but her,” the boy wrote, admitting that he was obsessed with her. “She was preying on me to manipulate my mind, to then have sex with me.”

The boy stated that he has been scarred for life.

“I can see and feel what was taken [from me] and what I will never get back,” he added.

Authorities have said that Dickey, the boy’s former eighth-grade teacher at South Buffalo Charter School, picked him up June 16 in South Buffalo, imprisoned him for about 21 hours and attempted to carry out a suicide pact with him by supplying him with alcohol and over-the-counter drugs.

Then last summer, after being ordered by a judge not to contact the boy, Dickey met with him numerous times, leading to the two second-degree rape charges to which she pleaded guilty in March.

“Referring to the day she and I attempted to take our lives, I’m still in shock and awe,” the boy stated in the letter. “Life has too much to offer, and young people have too much to offer the world today to just take our own lives. Or, in my case, being persuaded that taking my life would be the right thing to do.

“She made me believe that I would be nothing without her, and she was going to kill herself no matter what, because she knew she was going to jail. This is how badly she manipulated my mind.”

I also wanted to comment on something that she said and that is:

“Your honor, I take full responsibility for my actions. They were my own,” she told Michalski. “But my actions throughout that time do not define my character. I am a good person who made a bad mistake, and I’m a good mother, a great mother.” - Read the entire article here

A mistake? When something like this happens it goes way beyond a "mistake". And seeing as she is convicted of doing this AFTER she had been caught, charged and ordered by a judge to stay away from the victim it pretty much shows that this was far from a mistake.

I would think she also got a very light sentence considering everything that was involved here.

I have not been keeping up with the teachers series I had started doing previously. Here is a list of just some of the female teachers for March 2009. These are only those cases which have already been ruled on in Court, not cases in which they are charged:


DODGE CITY, KANSAS. - Tabatha Adams, 36, a former second-grade teacher at Sacred Heart Cathedral School in Dodge City, Kansas was sentenced to 30-years in federal prison for producing and manufacturing child pornography.

Adams pleaded guilty to manufacturing and producing digital pictures of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. She had been previously convicted in the Ford County District Court, Dodge City, Kan. of aggravated indecent liberties with a child under 14-years-old and sentenced to a life term of imprisonment. The federal sentence is to run concurrently to the state sentence. - Read the entire article here


NORMAN, OK. - Vicky Lynn Lewallen, 44, a biology teacher and former girl’s basketball coach at Norman North High School, in Norman, Oklahoma was sentenced to two years in prison for a sex crime involving a 16-year-old female student. - Read the entire article here


MONROE, MICH. - A former Monroe High School teacher accused of having sex with a student answered to a lesser charge in court Wednesday. Kelly Abdo, 27 was sentenced to two years probation and that she give up her teaching license - Read entire article here


GOODYEAR, AZ - Susan Jayne Anderson, 28, a basketball and volleyball coach at Desert Edge High School and a fitness teacher at Centerra Mirage Elementary School both in Goodyear, Arizona will be sentenced April 3 after pleading guilty to having a sexual relationship with a student.

She pleaded guilty to one count of sexual conduct with a minor, a Class 6 felony, on Feb. 27, according to Maricopa County Superior Court records. Anderson told police she "chose and targeted" the female student because the teen had low self-esteem, according to court documents. - Read the entire article here


BELVIDERE, ILL - Loren L. Leoni, 24, an English teacher and freshman girls volleyball coach at Belvidere High School in Belvidere, Illinois accused of having a sexual relationship with a then 15-year-old student plead guilty to aggravated criminal sexual abuse and now faces a maximum of seven years in prison or a minimum of four years probation. In either case, Leoni would have to register as a sex offender for the rest of her life. She'll be sentenced in May. - Read the entire article here


ST. CLAIR SHORES, MICH. - Melissa Lavender, 33, a culinary arts teacher at South Lake High School in St Clair Shores, Michigan accused of engaging in sex acts with two students on a boat last summer pleaded guilty today to two counts of attempted aggravated stalking as part of a plea agreement. - Read the entire article here


NEW YORK, NY. - Heather Kennedy, 25, a math teacher at Wataugh High School, Long Island, New York who continued to have sex with her former student even after she was arrested for it was sentenced Friday to 6 months in jail and will lose her teacher's license. Kennedy, told Judge Joseph Calabrese that she is sorry for what she did and has learned her lesson.

A Long Island teacher's obsession with her former student has gotten her busted for a third time. Heather Kennedy, 26, was sentenced on Friday to six months time served for bedding the 16-year-old boy last year - once having sex in his car in the parking lot at Wantagh High School, where she was his math teacher.

Early Saturday cops swooped in and rearrested Kennedy at her Massapequa home, accusing her of writing the teen from jail, a violation of an order of protection taken out against her. - Read the entire article here and here.


CROOKSTON, Minn. - Kellie Ann Cormican, 39, a substitute teacher at Crookston High School in Crookston, Minnesota has been sentenced to more than 6 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges that she had sex with a 14-year-old boy. Cormican worked for the Crookston school district for two years starting in 2004 as a special education paraprofessional. - Read the entire article here


BUFFALO, NY. - Cara L. Dickey, 30, a married mother of three and former teacher at South Buffalo Charter School, in Buffalo, New York today pleaded guilty to raping one of her 14-year-old students at the South Buffalo Charter School two times last summer. - Read the entire article here