Lubec, MAINE

Thirty days for sexual contact with a 13-year-old boy. It's a good thing we have sex registration laws.

November 21, 2008 - Lubec Consolidated School teacher Tina Mason, 31, was sentenced to 30 days in jail for having a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old boy. She was also given two suspended sentences of 11 months in jail after pleading no contest to charges of assault, sexual abuse of a minor and unlawful sexual touching.

Mason resigned her teaching position at the Lubec school last December after the incident came to light. Lubec school officials had concerns about a possible inappropriate relationship between Mason and one of her students, which proved to be unfounded, but contacted police when their investigation revealed the relationship between Mason and the East Machias boy.

Mason was also ordered to surrender teaching certification and will have to register as a sex offender for 10 years.

Prosecutors say Mason, her husband and their two children, ages 6 and 10, were friends with the victim's family.

Old Bridge, NEW JERSEY

SENTENCED  to five years probation. 

December 5, 2008 - Lisa Glide, 35, a drama teacher at Old Bridge High School in New Jersey, was arrested on charges that she has been having sex with one of her male students.

Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan says the teacher faces second-degree charges of sexual assault and child endangerment. The prosecutor's office has been investigating Glide since November 25th after they received tips regarding the sexual relationship. The student graduated in June.

Glide was released on $100,000 bail on December 5th. She is being represented by Robert Wills of Princeton, a contract attorney with the state teachers union.

Anyone with information related to the investigation are urged to contact Investigator Michael Daniewicz of the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office Sex Crimes/Child Abuse Unit at 732-745-3600 or detective Michael Machen of the Old Bridge Police Department at 732-721-5600, Ext. 3210 anytime.

GUILTY PLEA June 2, 2009 - Lisa Glide pleaded guilty to fourth degree endangering the welfare of a child.

[She] agreed to give up her teaching certificate and not reapply for a teaching certificate in any public school New Jersey.

The agreement with the state also calls for Glide to be placed on up to five years of probation and receive mental health counseling as required by her probation officer. During her probation, she can have only supervised contact with males under the age of 18.

In return for the guilty plea, the state agreed to drop a second-degree sexual assault charge and reduce the degree of the endangering charge from third to fourth.

SENTENCED Aug 10, 2009 - Glide was sentenced to five years probation despite a request by the prosecution for a sentence of 364 days. "Glide told the judge if she was in better mental shape, "it never would have happened" and said she "shouldn't have even been teaching at the time."

License Revocation - Maybe

December 7, 2008 - The Arkansas State Board of Education will consider revoking Paul Knutson's teaching license. Knutson pleaded guilty to sexual conduct with a minor.He was sentenced to 60 days in jail and will remain on probation for the rest of his life.

TT entry for Paul Knutson. Arizona previously revoked his license.
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ONLINE RESOURCE: Some Arkansas disciplinary decisions can be found in the monthly state Board of Education meeting minutes. Parents should take note and be aware of the number of teachers who are given waivers to teach despite prior criminal convictions.

Knoxville, TENNESEE

"The court finds that the 71 days served is sufficient 'shock incarceration' to effectively sober the defendant's mind as to the seriousness of the offense," the judge wrote.

Mar 16, 2007 - Erin McLean, 30, a teaching intern last fall at West High School, is not in jail or even being investigated for a sexual relationship with a 18-year-old boy she met while at the school. Now the boy is dead, shot by her husband outside their home last Sunday.

The age of consent in Tennesee is 18 and Sean Powell was 18. The mother of two boys, ages 11 and 7, Erin McClean has reportedly moved in with relatives in Nashville while her husband, Eric, remains in jail.

The funeral for Sean Powell was held on Thursday.

Mar 21 - Erin McClean tried to commit suicide five days later with a drug overdose, Nashville police said. Her family called police, she was taken to a hospital and later released.

Mar 22 - Tabloid journalism: NBC's "Today" show interviewed McClean. General Sessions Judge Bob McGee agreed Wednesday to allow the NBC interview over prosecutors' objections that it could prejudice a jury pool.

TT - It's the kind of journalism we used to associate with the National Enquirer. There's something unseemly about such public displays when one young man is dead, his family is grieving, McClean's two children will likely be removed from the home and lose their father for a long time. Human tragedy as a spectator sport.

Apr 2 - The victims adoptive mother saw "little love" in the teacher-student sex. "how can anyone put love into this situation?" She and her husband adopted Sean when he was age 6. It was his fifth foster home.

"He struggled to overcome his pain from his early childhood," Scarlett Powell wrote. "He had been displaced many times in his short life. We hoped to assist him to feel wanted and loved, which Sean desperately needed, but mostly we wanted to keep him safe and out of harm's way."

INDICTMENT SECOND DEGREE May 10 - Eric McLean was indicted but not the first-degree count prosecutors had sought, according to court documents released Thursday. The second-degree murder count against Eric McLean carries a 25-year maximum sentence, instead of the life term the higher-level charge carries.

McLean, released on $150,000 bond in April, is expected to be arraigned in a couple of weeks and have a trial date set.

TRIAL DATE SET June 20 - A trial date has been scheduled for for January 21, 2008. A judge ruled he will have to pay for his own lawyer. The defense lawyer thinks a divorce is in the near future.

WEIRD TWIST Sept 21 - ABC News is reporting that Erin McLean has gone missing with her two children. Her lawyer thinks she may be heading to California to meet with a friend she met on the Internet.

NEW INDICTMENT Dec 13 - The grand jury has indicted McLean on first-degree murder charges. He had previously faced a second-degree murder.

NOT GUILTY PLEA Dec 14 - McLean was arraigned and entered a plea of not guilty. A motions trial is scheduled for Jan 14. McLean's two kids are with their mother. Where they are, exactly, no one seems to know. The last known location was somewhere in Colorado. A jury trial is scheduled for Sep 3, 2008.

DIVORCE Feb 1, 2008 - A judge granted Erin McLean a divorce and appointed a lawyer to serve as guardian of the children. They do not know where the mother and the children are and will be searching.

TRIAL September 3 - Jurors are being selected in the murder trial.

See our Rant of the Day.

CONVICTED, SENTENCED and RELEASED December 18 - McLean was convicted of of reckless homicide in September and was sentenced to 90 days, which would have freed him on Christmas Eve. Criminal Court Judge Mary Beth Leibowitz signed an order Friday releasing McLean after serving a total of 71 days in jail.

Long Beach, CALIFORNIA

Sentenced to two years in prison and registration as a sex offender for life.

December 8, 2008 - Sentencing has been delayed for John Kinard, 36, who pleaded no contest in November to having sex with two teenage girls. A charter school teacher in Los Angeles, Kinard also taught Spanish at Wilson High School in Long Beach.

Kinard was arrested in August. Both girls were age 15 and were friends or related to his fiancee's family. The plea requires him to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. He faces up to nine years when he is sentenced. He will return to Long Beach Superior Court on April 7 for sentencing.
Full Name: John David Kinard

GUILTY - December 8, 2008 - Kinard pleaded no contest to having sex with the two girls.

SENTENCED - April 22, 2009 - Kinard was sentenced to two years in prison but with credit for one year served. Kinard will have to register as a sex offender for life and must submit to DNA profiling and AIDS testing and pay $10,000 as victim restitution.

Millbrae, CALIFORNIA

March 12, 2008 - David Lista, 35, a English and leadership teacher at Mills High School, was arrested Thursday. Police said he admitted filming female students in an adjoining bathroom. Charges will be determined for the videotaping.

Lista's classroom is located next to the bathroom where the images were taken from a camera placed in the ceiling, police and school officials said. "What happened was he accessed the false ceiling, which was a series of panels, and had broken out a small piece," Aronis said. School officials said the confiscated images, which police say were captured over one to two months, show 19 people using the bathroom.

A technology coordinator found the images on a school computer server. Police were notified and Lista was arrested when they found a small amount of methamphetamine in a search of his home. Lista taught at the school for seven years. [Another story says 10 years.]

Students at the school complained that Lista had other things on his mind. He consistently failed to grade papers and students passed a petition to get him to return papers. They took the petition to the principal.

Several students also said Lista was caught up in an episode last year involving links on his YouTube video-sharing account. "I saw it myself," said Alfred Tam, a senior who was in Lista's leadership class. "He had links to his 'favorites' that were all these videos of underage girls dancing in bikinis." The links were passed around the student body, Tam said.

School principal Paul Belzer declined to comment on the petition or the YouTube videos .[ TT - "It's a personnel matter." Translation: How dare you question our authority?] The union has offerred to lawyer him up.

Teachers' association president Craig Childress said Lista, who has been placed on administrative leave, is entitled to legal representation through the union.

"We've made attempts to notify him of his rights to representation," Childress said. "I'm not aware of whether he has taken that opportunity."

Arraignment is scheduled for April 8. The charges will depend upon whether he traded the images or not.

NEW CHARGES - CHILD PORNOGRAPHY April 4, 2008 - Lista was charged Friday with four felony child pornography counts, including possession of the mateirl with the intent to distribute, after investigators discovered that his home computer contains hundreds of pictures and videos of child pornography.

Lista admitted to the allegations that he filmed the students, police said. But prosecutors waited several weeks to charge him while FBI investigators examined the teacher's home computer for child pornography. Arraignment is scheduled for April 8.

ARRAIGNED April 8 - Lista was arraigned and remanded into custody this morning on drug and pornography charges. He pleaded not guilty. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Lista on July 29.

HIDDEN CLASSROOM CAMERA April 9 - Lista also peeped on students using a hidden camera stashed under his classroom desk, prosecutors said Tuesday. Police found 20 images of students he had filmed during class — from a camera pasted under his desk - on a separate computer seized from his home. His home computer also contained hundreds of other pictures and videos accessed from a wide-reaching child pornography trade, investigators said.

BAIL CONDITIONS April 15 - Prosecutors asked for increased bail, but the judge denied the request. He did add stipulations that Lista cannot contact or be around minors, be around elementary, middle or high schools and he may only use the Internet to send personal e-mails or job hunt. He is currently out on $125,000 bail.

RESIGNATION April 19 - The San Mateo Union High School District board accepted Lista's resignation during a closed-door meeting Thursday night. Police said they also seized a small amount of methamphetamine at Lista’s home.

ARRAIGNMENT for COCAINE May 16 - Lista was arraigned for possession of cocaine. Lista was stopped by San Mateo police April 4 because they thought his driving seemed impaired. After questioning, Lista handed the officers a snorting tube with a quarter gram of cocaine. He is also facing one felony charge for drugs that were previously found at his home. A preliminary hearing is scheduled July 29 on the drug and pornography charges.

POSSIBLE PLEA AGREEMENT Aug 14 - Prosecutors have offered David Lista an undisclosed plea bargain but are holding off on formalizing any agreement. “We want to check into a few items first,” said Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe, declining to elaborate.

PLEA AGREEMENT - August 29 - Lista pleaded no contest Thursday to felony charges of possession of child pornography and possession of methamphetamine, and misdemeanor charges stemming from the taping of girls in the bathroom and his classroom.

A misdemeanor charge of cocaine possession was dismissed. He will have to register as a sex offender. Lista is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 30. A court-appointed psychiatrist will evaluate Lista before sentencing to determine whether he should be considered a sexual predator.

SENTENCED November 25 - Lista was sentenced Monday in San Mateo County Superior Court to two years in state prison. The three sentences to run concurrently — two years for drug use and possession, 16 months for possession of child pornography and 60 days for misdemeanor counts of improper peeping. Lista must also register as both a sex offender and narcotics offender.

Child Pornography and Educators
TT - List of educators sentenced for child pornography.
TT - List of educators guilty, but not yet sentenced, for child pornography.

West Seneca, NEW YORK

August 12, 2008 - Anthony Harper, 34, a West Seneca East Middle School French teacher, pleaded guilty to a felony-level sodomy charge involving a 13-year-old boy. During the plea proceeding, Harper signed a document terminating him immediately as a West Seneca school teacher. As a part of the plea agreement, misdemeanor sex abuse and child endangerment charges were dropped.
He will be sentenced November 12.

Full Name: Anthony D. Harper

SENTENCED December 5 - Harper was sentenced to two years in prison, followed by seven years of court supervision . He resigned in August after pleading guilty and had to surrender his New York teacher's certificate.

State Supreme Court Justice John L. Michalski reminded Harper that "The community will be safe from your predatory behavior.” Michalski also reminded him that he will now remain a closely watched sex offender.

APOLOGIES to contributers and readers. And many thanks for your well wishes.

The good news is that they believe they got all of it and there's no lymph involvement. It's been a longer recovery than I anticipated. Thank you for your patience and e-mails.

Smyrna, TENNESSEE

He came to court hoping for probation for five statutory rape and two assault convictions.


Jan 6, 2007 - A trial date has been set for Kenneth Anderson Jr, 38, Smyrna High biology teacher, on statutory rape charges. Anderson faces 25 charges, including several statutory rape counts, sexual battery of an authority figure and rape by fraud. Trial is scheduled for May 7. Now scheduled for July 9.

DISTRICT INVESTIGATION in 2003 June 30 - The Tenneseean reports that

the Metro school district investigated paternity charges in 2003. Metro's Adult Sex Crimes Unit closed the case a month later with no charges filed. DNA tests concluded Anderson was not the father, and he was allowed to finish out the school year. Metro didn't rehire him, and Anderson moved on to Williamson and then Rutherford County.

School officials there launched their own investigation after a parent complained about racy text messages sent to their daughter. Rutherford fired him almost a month later and reported the incident to the state.

In February 2006, Metro police arrested Anderson on multiple counts of statutory rape involving two children. One was a student at Smyrna High School and one was not.

TRIAL DATE RESCHEDULED Jan 14, 2008 - Jury selection began in trial. THEN, Anderson's trial has been postponed until July 21. [No explanation.] He has been charged with three counts of rape, 13 counts of statutory rape and nine counts of sexual battery by an authority figure for having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old student.

PREVIOUS CONVICTION Anderson was convicted on statutory rape charges last year for having a sexual relationship with a different minor. The 13-year-old Antioch girl’s father found them in bed together. She was not a student.
See District Attorney General Case Disposition 2006-C-2268, September 27, 2007

SENTENCED (on the conviction of rape of 13-year-old - newspaper says she was 14. D.A. office press release above says 13.)
Jan 31, 2008 - The Tennessean, says that Anderson came to court hoping to be placed on probation for his five statutory rape and two assault convictions. They lament: two years of good behavior wasn't enough. (He's been wearing an electronic ankle monitor for two years and has not violated the corresponding restrictions, which allow him to go only to work, church and the grocery store, they write.)

Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins gave Anderson two years for each rape count and 11 months and 29 days for the assault charges, but the judge has not decided whether Anderson will have to serve the sentences consecutively or concurrently.

The judge ordered Anderson to undergo a psychosexual evaluation before administering the terms of the sentence. Watkins will make a decision April 2.

Anderson is awaiting trial in July on charges of sexual battery involving a relationship he is accused of having with a 16-year-old girl.

SENTENCED Dec 5 - Anderson was sentenced Friday to nine years in prison. Anderson was already serving time for statutory rape and simple assault.