A Pennsylvania high school principal is in hot water for looking the other way during a teacher’s tryst with a student — claiming he didn’t want to ruin the educator’s career.
Mark Patrick Murphy, 42, principal of Lackawanna Trail High School in Clinton Township, allegedly knew about the illegal affair but failed to report it to Childline, the state’s child abuse hotline, despite several complaints from other faculty members, WBRE-TV News reported.
Murphy was told to stay home and is facing a charge of failing to report the abuse, the outlet said.
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State troopers began investigating the alleged relationship after a concerned parent reached out to police on Jan. 30 about the inappropriate tryst, prompting an investigation.
Investigators learned that several teachers had complained about the relationship, and that Murphy had even interviewed faculty, students and parents about the rumored sexual encounters, WBRE said.
However, Murphy allegedly just stashed the records in his closet and never called Childline.
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State police did not provide details of the alleged sexual relationship between the teacher and the student.
Matthew Rutledge seems to have known what he was doing.
In late March, the longtime history teacher at Miss Hall’s School resigned after more than three decades at the Pittsfield prep school, after two women publicly accused him of grooming and sexually exploiting them for years, starting when they were students there in the early 2000s.
Both women say Rutledge did not have sex with them until after they turned 16 — the age of consent in Massachusetts.
The notion that either girl could have actually consented to sex with a powerful teacher more than twice her age is ludicrous. Rutledge was an authority figure who, by all accounts, was a faculty star who operated with impunity at the school. He is alleged to have groomed Hilary Simon and Melissa Fares starting when each of them was 15, escalating his attentions, and his physical contact, until they reached an age at which he could not be criminally charged for raping them, as long as the teens went along with the sex.
Our state law takes no account of the power dynamic in such situations: It simply says they were able to consent, because they were 16.
It’s bonkers, but that’s the rule.
“Can a 16-year-old who has no idea what is coming actually consent when a teacher pulls her into a closet and lays her down on a yoga mat he has prepared for her and proceeds to have sex with her?” asked Kristin Knuuttila, an attorney for women who allege Rutledge abused them, describing the first time the teacher allegedly had intercourse with Fares, when he was in his late 40s, and she had just turned 17.
But according to current state law, anyone, including a teacher, a coach, a bus driver, a principal, a school counselor, or someone else in authority can have sex with a student or player who is 16, 17, 18 years old, and, if the teen says they agreed to it, the rape statute can’t touch the adult (though other laws might apply).
Nobody who has ever met a high schooler could be OK with this.
“This is such horrible legislative policy,” said attorney Eric MacLeish, Knuuttila’s colleague, who has represented hundreds of child sexual abuse survivors. “When I tell parents of victims about it, they are just aghast.”
MacLeish and many others have been trying to change this for years. For close to a decade, state Senator Joan Lovely has been proposing legislation that would close the consent loophole, raising the age from 16 to 18 when it involves sex with a person in a position of authority. For those with special needs, the age of consent in those situations would be raised to 21.
And every year, it keeps not getting done.
Other states have managed this, setting a higher age of consent in situations like the one at Miss Hall’s — Connecticut and New Hampshire, for example. Others make it a crime for an educator to have sex with a school student no matter that student’s age, including Ohio and Arkansas.
This is beyond embarrassing for Massachusetts.
“Legislators are like the general public,” said Jetta Bernier, who heads MassKids, an abuse prevention organization. “They don’t like to think about this problem, it is so distasteful.”
What the heck is it going to take to convince Beacon Hill to finally act here?
This year, a package of bills proposed by Lovely, a Democrat from Salem, and Ken Gordon, a state rep from Bedford, would close the consent loophole and establish other measures to better protect kids from sexual abuse. They would require schools and youth organizations to provide clearer education for employees and students about how to recognize and prevent sexual abuse, for example. If Fares and Simon had been taught to recognize grooming, and theirteachers had been put on notice about inappropriate contact with students, their lives may have taken very different courses.
Some of the measures are still alive, but time is running out on this legislative session. Lawmakers can pass the package and send a message that this state cares enough about child abuse to give teens the same protections as younger kids.
Or they can do nothing yet again, and 16-year-olds will just have to fend for themselves.
A New Jersey elementary school teacher allegedly had a child with one of her former students, 13, who lived with her for several years — and was caught when the teen’s father noticed a similarity between his son and the child on social media.
Laura Caron, a fifth-grade teacher, is accused of sexually assaulting her ex-pupil when they lived together in her home between 2016 and 2020, the Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office revealed Wednesday.
Caron, 34, first met her victim when she taught him and his brother in the fifth grade at Middle Township Elementary School in southern New Jersey.
The boy, born in 2005, and his family remained close with their former teacher and his parents allowed their sons and daughter to sleep over at Caron’s house a couple nights a week, according to ABC6.
The three siblings lived permanently with Caron between 2016 and 2020, sharing a bedroom.
During that time, Caron allegedly had “inappropriate sexual relations” with her former pupil and later became pregnant.
She gave birth to the child in 2019.
The student’s father pointed out the uncanny similarity between Caron’s child, himself and his son on a Facebook post in December 2024.
The boy’s sister told prosecutors that she remembered going to sleep with her brother in the same room, but woke up to find him sleeping in Caron’s bed, the outlet reported.
The unidentified girl claimed Caron began sleeping with her brother when he was 11 years old.
Investigators found that the teen’s brother had once seen Caron sexually assaulting his sleeping brother.
The unidentified teen victim, who is now between 19 and 20 years old, revealed to investigators the sexual relationship with Caron and that he fathered his former teacher’s child.
The two had remained in contact until his father made the December Facebook post.
Police arrested Caron at her home on Wednesday and charged her with aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, and endangering the welfare of a child.
She is being held at the Cape May County Correctional Facility without bond until her initial court appearance, according to the prosecutors and court records viewed by The Post.
“This arrest underscores the unwavering commitment of our office and law enforcement partners to protect the children in our community,” Cape May County Prosecutor Jeffery Sutherland said.
“Teachers hold a position of great trust, and the allegations in this case represent a deeply troubling breach of that trust. We will work tirelessly to ensure justice is served and to support the victim and their family throughout this process.”
Everyone knows that victims of crime try their hardest to stay in contact with the perpetrator and deny they were ever victims! Well, unless of course it's assault, attempted murder, breaking & entering, adult rape, revenge porn, stalking, theft, you know, all the crimes...Fragment wrote: Fri Jan 17, 2025 3:43 amWho's the victim? Do victims voluntarily stay in contact with their abusers, even once they are independent adults?The unidentified teen victim, who is now between 19 and 20 years old, revealed to investigators the sexual relationship with Caron and that he fathered his former teacher’s child. The two had remained in contact until his father made the December Facebook post.
Seems real traumatizedFragment wrote: Fri Jan 17, 2025 3:43 amWho's the victim? Do victims voluntarily stay in contact with their abusers, even once they are independent adults?The unidentified teen victim, who is now between 19 and 20 years old, revealed to investigators the sexual relationship with Caron and that he fathered his former teacher’s child. The two had remained in contact until his father made the December Facebook post.
Jacintha McSherry O'Connor was found guilty to two counts of indecently assaulting a male student in 1985.
A secondary school teacher who 40 years ago told a 13-year-old pupil she indecently assaulted that she was herself a victim of sexual assault did so as part of a “grooming” process, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
“Whatever way one looks at this, the evidence disclosed inappropriate and continuing conduct,” said Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy rejecting an argument by Jacinta McSherry O'Connor (64) that the jury in her trial should not have heard that she told the 13-year-old boy about her own assault.
McSherry O’Connor, The Mullins, Donegal Town, pleaded not guilty to two counts of indecently assaulting a male student in 1985, but she was found guilty following a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court trial in October 2023.
The court heard that she indecently assaulted the boy on two occasions in his home on dates between June 1 and September 1, 1985, while giving him grinds.
She was aged 24 at the time and the boy was 13.
At a previous hearing, the man, now in his fifties, stated in a victim impact statement that McSherry O'Connor had been like a "spectre" hanging over him his whole life.
He said she took his innocence away and that what happened was “deeply and morally wrong”.
McSherry O'Connor was sentenced by Judge Elma Sheahan to three years on each count concurrently, with the final six months suspended.
Launching an appeal against her conviction, McSherry O'Connor's legal team asserted that the trial judge erred by refusing to accede to an application to exclude portions of her interview with gardaí, in which she referenced an alleged incident with another senior teacher where she said she was the victim of a sexual assault.
At the Court of Appeal in October, counsel for the appellant, Marc Thompson BL, said that his client had given these details of being the victim of sexual assault in a statement she made, which the prosecution introduced into evidence.
He said that these portions of her statement should not have been given to the jury in the case.
Concerning her disclosure of this alleged assault to the student, Mr Thompson said that the appellant, who was 24 at the time while the boy was 12, had just been the victim of sexual assault herself, so she “blurted it out” to the boy.
In delivering the Court of Appeal’s judgement today, Ms Justice Kennedy said that it was the court’s view that the impugned material was relevant and necessary.
“Grooming of a child is, by definition, an ongoing continuing process and may be multifaceted in its nature.
"The behaviour may seek to try and develop a connection between the adult and the minor over time,” she said.
The judge went on to note that the appellant was aware the child had a crush on her and she maintained inappropriate sexualised conversations with him.
“Whatever way one looks at this, the evidence disclosed inappropriate and continuing conduct on the appellant’s part, which (the State) was entitled to rely upon as evidence of grooming,” said Ms Justice Kennedy.
Saying that the court was not persuaded by the argument advanced by the defence, Ms Justice Kennedy ruled that the appeal was dismissed.
A former teacher has been jailed for four years and nine months for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy from a Western Sydney school.
Monica Elizabeth Young pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated sexual intercourse over her abuse of the student in June and July last year.
Young was 23 when she met up with the boy at various locations, including classrooms and her car.
The pair spoke on the social media platforms Instagram and Snapchat.
Young told the teenager to hug and touch her when they met up in person, taunting him by saying he "did not have the balls".
"It's dangerous if we get caught, but if you do it, it'll be worth it," Young said in a message in late June.
When the victim's mother later took his phone off him, she saw a photo Young sent showing her lying fully clothed in bed with a caption that read: "I'm waiting for you".
District Court Judge Kate Traill said Young's crimes "egregiously" breached the trust placed in teachers.
"The offender preyed on the vulnerability of the victim as a child and as a student whom she taught," she told the Downing Centre in sentencing.
"She exploited his vulnerability and manipulated him."
Young was handed a maximum sentence of four years and nine months with a non-parole period of two years and five months.
The judge accepted she was in a "bad relationship" at the time, was immature, and did not go into teaching to be near young males for sexual gratification.
The court heard Young was only two months into her first job as a teacher and she described being "overwhelmed", including by being in charge of classes she was not qualified to teach.
She said she saw the victim as "a friend rather than a student" and expressed feelings of guilt and shame following her crimes.
In an impact statement, the victim told the court his life had "changed dramatically" for the worse since Young's abuse.
The teenager said he'd been "forced to grow up" and can no longer face his family because he feels like a failure.
Last month, Young told the court she never wanted to intentionally harm the victim and said she struggled with online class protocols introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Crown argued hundreds, if not thousands, of new teachers have little training but don't offend in the way Young did.
Young will be eligible for parole in October 2023
LONDON, Ky. (WYMT) - One former Southern Kentucky middle school teacher and basketball coach was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison for online enticement of a minor.
According to his plea agreement, from August 2023 through February 2024, William Goodson, 32, persuaded one minor to engage in sexual activity while he was teaching at South Laurel Middle School.
Goodson exchanged many sexually explicit messages with the victim via Snapchat and SMS.
When questioned, Goodson told police his relationship with the minor was like that of a boyfriend, and he further admitted to buying the victim gifts and communicating each day through Snapchat.
Goodson convinced the victim to engage in sexual contact in the classroom he taught in on multiple occasions.
Following his release from prison, Goodson will be under supervision of the U.S. Probation Office for 20 years.
