Florida Girl Teachers

First some legal background: In Florida, the age of sexual consent is 18. However a 16 or 17 year old can give consent to a partner up to the age of 23. 

Florida Has A Romeo And Juliet Law

 

This latter provision is under Florida's “Romeo and Juliet law”which recognised that young people will be, well, young people. No one under the age of 16 can give consent under any circumstances.

However, there must be something in the sultry air of Florida, because lady teachers seem to act in a somewhat inappropriate manner, or at least contrary to state laws.

Debra Lafave

Debra Jean Williams (née Beasley; b 28/8/1980) but better known under her married name of Debra Lafave, was a teacher at Angelo L. Greco Middle School in Temple Terrace, Florida, before 2005, when she pleaded guilty to lewd or lascivious battery against a teenager. To whit, a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old student in mid-2004, when she was aged 24. Lafave managed to get plea bargain (presumably to spare the boy a court appearance), which included no prison time, opting for three years of house arrest due to safety concerns, and seven years of probation.

Jennifer Christine Fichter

 

Jennifer Christine Fichter (b 8/12/1984) was a teacher at Kathleen High School, in Polk County, Florida, United States until she was arrested by Lakeland Police on April 15, 2014, and charged with numerous counts of sexual battery stemming from relationships with three of her 17-year-old students, one of which resulted in a terminated pregnancy.

This wasn't her first rodeo, so to speak, as she had previously taught at Robinswood Middle School, Orange County, Florida until 19/12/2008, when she resigned, after the school launched an investigation for alleged offences of inappropriate behaviour towards a pupil (but which didn't result in sexual activity between the two). Her resignation wasn't registered by the school so she was free to get a job at Kathleen High School. 

She pleaded guilty to 37 counts and despite appeals for leniency the judge described her as "a predator" and she was sentenced to 22 years imprisonment, and is not scheduled for release until January 19th, 2035. She had earlier turned down the offer of a plea deal to avoid a trial, but in the end received three years less than a plea deal offered by the State Attorney's Office ... however a former judge has criticised the long sentence, saying that Ms Fichter should have been given "little prison time" and "probably a lot of probation." i.e. more in line with these other cases. However when she appealed against the sentence length, it was rejected and sentence confirmed.

A more compassionate view was also not particularly the view of Judge Samantha Ward in Hillsborough County, who in April 2015, added to Ms Fitcher's prison sentence with the words "I adjudicate you guilty and sentence you to three years in Florida State prison, followed by one-year probation." on separate charges of sex with a minor in that county (she had admitted to the boys mother of having sex in the family home) ....this will run concurrently with her 22-year sentence. 

I still can't help thinking that this is a very harsh punishment for a non violent offender, and that something like 9 years prison time, plus 10 years probation would have been sufficient.

Virginia Houston Hinckley

Virginia Houston Hinckley, a then 26-year-old high school teacher, at St Augustine High School in Florida, was charged with having unlawful sexual activity with a 16-year-old boy in 2015. In June 2017, aged 28  she was sentenced to six months in jail and classified a sex offender for having sex with a then-16 year-old student and will also face 72 months of probation, the first 12 of those under community control, after she is released from jail.

Tiffany Michelle Geliga

 

Tiffany Michelle Geliga (b. 05/26/1981), who taught chemistry at Port St. Lucie High School, in southern Florida, was arrested in May 2017, accused of having sex with a student. She faced two counts of sexual assault by a persons 24 years or older on a victim 16 or 17 years old. After a plea bargain, she was sentenced in June 2018 to 66 months (over 5 years) imprisonment, and also two years of sex offender probation during a court hearing, and she had to surrender her teaching license, court records show.

Stephanie Peterson

Stephanie Peterson, also known as Stephanie Ferri, is a former middle school teacher at New Smyrna Beach Middle School in Volusia County, Florida, who was arrested in February 2018 for allegedly having a secret sexual relationship with a 14-year-old boy, who alleged that she would also give him marijuana. In October 2018 she pleaded guilty to charges of lewd and lascivious battery sex act with a child and electronic transmission of material harmful to minors, for sexting and having sex with a 14-year-old middle school boy. In December 2018 she was sentenced to prison for 3 years, and will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of her life. Also has to do 2 years of community service.

Now regardless of whether you agree with prison time for some or all of these women (I have to say that sex with 14 year olds deserves prison time, but for sex with 17 year old boys I am not so sure about), the differences in sentences can seem to make it seem a rather arbitrary affair. I know that a 76,000 petition and Facebook page, both calling for a reduction of the prison sentence handed out to Jennifer Fichter were created and signed (mainly in Europe).

It didn't work, but shows the age of consent differences between the continents can prompt outcry's over what are perceived as very harsh sentences, for what are almost (but not completely) non crimes in other parts .... but it should be noted that if these teachers were men, and the victims were schoolgirls, this level of support would drop considerably.

However regardless of all that, these are remarkably attractive teachers, and apart from the French mistress at my high school, I can't recall any lady teachers who looked like these ladies.

Update January 2024:

Yet another young US female teacher (not a Florida teacher) has been accused of sex with an underage student. On January the 5th, 2024, Hailey Nichelle Clifton-Carmack, 26, was arrested in Texas, and accused of having sex with a 16 year old male student at her school in Missouri. She was placed Comal County Jail on a $250,000 bond and is to be extradited back to Missouri.

Hailey Nichelle Clifton-Carmack - Accused

Allegedly the teenage boy's father was also charged in Missouri with endangering the welfare of a child, after it was said that he was aware of the relationship between his son and the teacher. Ms Clifton-Carmack was said to have divorced from her husband, Chase, before the alleged affair with the student.

Of course this hasn't gone to court yet, so she isn't convicted of any offence, but as the affair took place in Missouri (she had been on the run before being arrested), she has been charged with their laws of sexual contact with a student, statutory rape in the second degree, endangering the welfare of a child, and child molestation. 

As we have seen above, and the comments below, she faces the probability of very real prison time if found guilty, although what exactly, is apparently variable, depending on the state and judge .... what drives these girls to make such reckless decisions with teenage boys is totally beyond me.