There is something wrong with the justice system when a female teacher gets probation and is only barred from teaching for two years. Had the teacher been male, I’ll bet he would have gotten 20 years for each victim.
Below is the story from USA Today:
After pleading guilty to having sex with three underage teenagers and sending lewd messages, a substitute teacher in Louisiana was spared jail and could even be headed back to the classroom, New Orlean’s station WDSU reports.
As part of a plea deal, 34-year-old Heidi Domangue Verrett pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of carnal knowledge of a juvenile and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile. When she was arrested in 2016, the Terrebonne Parish instructor faced three felony charges, according to the report.
A district judge then suspended Verrett’s six-month jail term and sentenced the substitute teacher and teacher’s aide to two years of unsupervised probation and ordered her to pay $900 in fines, Houma Today reports. She did not have to register as a sex offender.
Kids today know what to do and how to do it, 5 years before thay are physically able to do it. And they know how to “work the system”. They will “come on” to older men to get what they want. Then, when they get caught, they play innocent! Yes the older guy should know better – but why are they always the one to bear ALL the blame? Or? What about the kids who gets disciplined by the step-parent then runs to the school-counselor with a “story” they made up! The step parent gets arrested and ruined for life before even getting to tell their side of the story? What ever happened to hearing both sides of a story first? The whole system is scewed against the one who is being accused!
Its not about what you did but rather what a prosecutor can prove. I’ve read they had a weak case elsewhere. Sometimes they settle for a conviction when they can’t hit y o u with the book.
95% of all guilty verdicts are the direct result of accepting a plea on a state level, 97.5% on the federal level.
Our Justice system thrives on plea bargaining rather than trials.
So yes, the prosecution is more than happy to offer you a plea, regardless of the evidence against you.
I remember reading where Supreme Court Justice Kennedy made his famous faux pas, passing along the canard that recidivism in sex offenders was “frightening and high”, but in another opinion I remember him remarking on something that was the truth – we no longer have a system of trial by one’s peers but a system of plea bargains. Prosecutors have forgotten their oaths of office to seek justice before everything. Now the focus is on their own careers and how to get up and over on the government dime. One does it by numbers of convictions – notches on their legal pistols – it’s all about the case you can build and it has nothing to do with guilt or innocence. As they did in my case, they will manufacture evidence if they don’t have any. In the demographic where I was convicted, juries are like sheep and the US attorney or your prosecutor is the absolute Shepherd. This is because that US attorney represents the great and good government that allowed them in from Cuba to start the process of becoming legal citizens. Cuban refugees understand what happens when one’s government can come down hard on you. If you’re on a jury – (doing your duty like a good American citizen) – and you vote the way the government doesn’t want you to, you could wind up on their shit list and then bad things can happen to you from right out of the blue. Most of the Cuban Mariel boat – lift crowd had this principle instilled in them from a very early age. This is the demographic that’s most prevalent in South Florida. Most people going to trial there for anything lose in the courts – unless of course they have bucket loads and boatloads of money to lawyer up properly. Like Geoffrey Epstein – whose guilt was overwhelming, but got just a slap on the wrist, or William Kennedy Smith who was acquitted. The United States criminal justice system needs a complete overhaul and rebuild. We were on the way to that under Carter until Ronald Reagan got in and scotched the whole process.
I was told 20 times over that no evidence was needed. The only evidence was the teenagers word. Thats what my attorney told me over and over. So is it my understanding that a teenagers word is considered the proof only in sex offense cases??
Very scary the power given to kids. I can only imagine the lives ruined bc a child was convinced to make up a story about Dad so Mom could get revenge and vice versa.
Finally, a judge who “gets it”. The criminal justice system needs to clone this judge and get those clones out to every judicial district in the land and replace those currently sitting on the Supreme Court.
Pubescent girls and boys should be considered as adults for consenting sexual behavior since they are often the ones that instigate it with older adults.
Good Day…I do not think that one can ‘COMPARE’ this case or any other cases…every case is unique EXCEPT for those in the State of Florida-everyone gets the book tossed at them and they throw away the key for 10, 20-plus then give u another 10 on the outside-that is Florida-CRIME IS COMMERCE!-…Except for the EPSTEIN CASE-that is FEDERAL FRAUD-only SO that got a County Jail Sentence with a 6 day work release at 12 hours a day…able to sit in a AC office with his door closed while he entertained people all day long…now that is a SWEET ASS DEAL…is it not?…google, ‘Perverted Justice’-Julie Brown, Miami Herald!
make it a great day!
I am not against the female teacher receiving a light sentence. Rather I am for her male counterparts to also receive such a sentence. The world is a different place via the information age and teens aren’t like those in yester-year.
And unsupervised probation too. What a deal.
is it possible this judge has a hard on for the injustices of the SOR maybe he could be friend or fowl to the cause
I couldn’t believe what I was reading… I’m under the impression that committing any sexual crime is automatically placed on the registry. How can this be true???? Was it posted on April 1st?
I don’t believe the sentence was lenient. My problem is that, as stated above, the outcome is entirely different and disproportionate when the genders of the participants in similar situations is reversed. Personally, I think all sentences under these circumstances should be similar if the sexual contact was consensual.
Teenagers are horny as hell. Always have been, always will be. Very few would pass on a chance to indulge in their crushes on adults. For those that do, the argument that they are “emotionally scarred for life” is a very thin one at best. They might be heartbroken when the relationship ends, but that’s a pretty far cry from the trauma that the victim industry portrays as typical. To say that the teens are basically too stupid to know if they want to have sex or not is an adequate substitute for lack of consent is nonsensical, particularly in districts where DAs want to try minors as adults in other crimes. Nature decided when the human body is ready for sex – puberty.
I’m not saying sex between adults and teenagers shouldn’t be illegal or punished when discovered. I’m only saying that the adults in these circumstances are normally guilty only of poor judgment, not raging pedophile perverts, regardless of the gender of the adult or the teenager. I join the segment of society that wants to string up actual rape and sexual assailants against non-consenting victims of any age or gender, or those that prey on prepubescents. But considering all adults who have had sex with teenagers regardless of circumstance follows the same reasoning as considering all black people Crips or Bloods.
Thank you for your logical approach. It truly gives me hope.
Here’s my issue. If the teenager I exchanged inappropriate text messages with had murdered his parents, the state would have tried him as an adult.
BUT, when it comes to sexting and pursuing his best friends mom “a milf” by his designation..and oral sex, he is considered a child and deemed unable to make these decisions himself.
What I did was WRONG. I got wrapped up in the flattery and selfishly wanted more attention.
Should my life be ruined because of it? Scarlet letter for life painted with the same brush as pedophiles who prey on babies? Considered as scary as people who rape or kidnap? I mean, really?!
Never been in trouble in my life, married to the same man for 25 years, made one stupid, selfish mistake and I went to PRISON!! But the prison was nothing. The real prison started when I came home.
They are adults when it works for the state and children when they need to win a conviction. How can it be both ways??!!
My son received 9 years for online solicitation [of an undercover cop], plus a lifetime on the registry. Two weeks later, the same judge gave probation [no jail term] to a female who had a 6 month long affair with a 13 year old neighbor. She too was placed on the registry.
At the time, I thought this was not justice, and it is not. Looking back, i think both my son and the woman should have received the same probation sentence with the exception of the registry registration.
😳 Did she have sex with the judge too or what??
6 month jail term for statutory rape? (Suspended for probation) Or were the “teens” 18 or 19?
Wondering what the reasoning is here. Doesn’t make sense at all, unless the “teens” were 18 or 19.
People who did not have sex with teens get sent to prison for years, when they are trapped in sex sting operations. But someone who does actually have sexual with a teen (even more than one) doesn’t have to go to prison?
I’m hoping there is a lot of information missing about this story. Otherwise, yes, this is very f%#+d up! And this would just be more proof of how we have some very f%#+d up people working in the system.
Reading the article she has sex with two students, ages 15 and 16, and sent “lewd photos” to a third student, who was 13. If a man did this, EVERYONE ON HERE knows the man would have been vilified, sentenced to MANY years behind bars, and register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. This just goes to show, as the trend has been, the majority of women who sexually assault underaged boys get treated differently than men.
Dang skippy a man would have been absolutely crucified!! On that principle alone I think she deserved the full monty a man would have gotten: 25 years per victim, lifetime supervision, lifetime GPS and lifetime registration as a child predator.
My view is black-and-white: Either apply these horrific laws to everyone who commits these types of offenses or abolish them across the board.
Will, your suggestion to apply the laws equally across the board may seem a bit over the top to some but you are 100% correct. Some citizens are men; some are women; and some just aren’t for sure, but we are all citizens none the least, and laws should apply to all. I’m even a bit in favor of sex offender laws including enticement. The way some men and women dress is downright disgraceful. I see on TV the way some of the students dress in school, and their dress would embarrass a ‘Naples streetwalker’. The Bible tells us that if we look upon a person in an immoral way, then we have the same as committed an immoral act with that person. The more we act as gentlemen and ladies the better our society will get. I don’t know if we will see that in our lifetime.
The theory that the way a person dresses would be considered enticement, and could be used as a defense for criminal actions of a rapist or assault is reprehensible at best. A person should have self control, even if someone else were walking naked down the street. My initial comment on this wasn’t to say that the woman should have had the book thrown at her either. My point is that she was treated differently simply because she was a woman. This means that people out there, i.e. prosecuters, lawyers, jury members, judges, etc., don’t see a woman doing this to be as bad as a man. They see the woman as a person who made a mistake that was dumb, but didnt necessitate their life to be ruined forever. So THIS is how a man should be treated. I’m not saying 3 years probation for anyone having sex with a minor is the right call, but some sense of basic intelligence should be used.
We all know that 20 or 30 years ago the concept of a early or mid teen boy having sex with his teacher was almost a right of passage. And a girl of the same age seducing her neighbor or teacher was not unusual at all. Hell dozens of movies were made about these same things. But now things have changed. Men are vilified for this, and women are pretty much given a slap on the wrist.
Sometimes we get what we ask for.
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/news/mesa-lawmaker-seeks-more-leeway-on-sex-offender-registration/article_d1d47ae8-549d-11e9-9b38-33a8789f1147.html
Women often are payed less than men for doing the same job. Apparently, the justice system follows that trend. I have seen many cases like this over the years involving females getting lighter treatment than males, dating back to 1997 with the Mary Kay Letourneau case. It also seemed to me that the prettier the teacher was, the less time she got. Watched an episode of Oprah Winfrey’s show once where the audience was actually laughing as a female teacher recounted her “romance” with an underage student. To Oprah’s credit, she silenced her own audience by pointing out that they wouldn’t be laughing if it had been a male teacher having sex with a female student. For those who didn’t click through the entire USA Today article, it was based on this original which has a bit more detail.
http://www.wafb.com/2019/04/04/parents-outraged-over-light-sentence-substitute-teacher-who-had-sex-with-students/?fbclid=IwAR33eZmseKHo3OFb514_UA2POEcX_qlY40nIaIYygyoPkLdBPw5VaL93T8U
While we may question the actions in this case, if the truth be known, this is probably the resolution most sex offender cases should have come to. With the exception of the most heinous, and considering the low recidivism rate of sex offenders, many families could have been saved with such an outcome. Even though most of us ‘got the book thrown at us’, when such a common sense decision is made, maybe we should applaud it vice condemn it. It may represent a ‘light at the end of the tunnel’.
Cap…I am in total agreement with your take on this. Thx. for ur input!
Her punishment is fair and sufficient, and this is a good outcome. Per the source,
“Anybody who might want to hire this woman in the future, especially when it involves kids, is going to see that on her record,” [assistant DA] Elfert said. “I would suggest there won’t be many school systems at all that would hire her.”
Do we want to reform Florida’s criminal justice system to look more like this? Or, as some have suggested below, do we want to spread Florida’s more severe system to other states, particularly in cases where men are involved, in the interest of “fairness”?
My view when it comes to criminal punishment is that we level down, not up, and that is one of the reasons I joined FAC.
The problem with this case is that people read the story and think that punishments are too lenient – then demand harsher sentences.
Yes, there seems to be huge disparity between female sentences and male sentences.
Remember Mary Kay Letourneau? I seem to recall she was a teacher who had an ongoing sexual relationship with her 13 year old (male) student. She got like 6 months!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Kay_Letourneau
Doesnt have to Register! These laws Target Men.
They say Justice is blind, but it obviously is skewed one direction. A male teacher would lose everything, be in jail for years and be on the registry forever. It would be interesting to see how he has sentenced similar cases involving males.
Un-bloody believable. In Florida that would have been twenty in and at LEAST twenty out, and INTENSE supervision! Plus life-time registration and harassment!
Please excuse the language FAC and all on here…
But thats F%*k#d up