Tampa Teacher Ethel Anderson Convicted of 9 Counts of Lewd Acts on 12 Year Old Student
We will never understand why men and women as role models would stoop so low as to sexually take advantage of a child. What kind of psychological evaluations did this teacher have before getting hired? Or did she at all
A jury has convicted a former Mango Elementary school teacher of performing sex acts on a 12-year-old former student.
Ethel Anderson was convicted on all nine counts of lewd and lascivious behavior.
Prosecutors say Anderson had oral sex and other sexual contact with the boy, whom she tutored on Saturdays at her Riverview home in 2011 and early last year a home she shared with her husband and kids.
"The story is remarkable. Not true, it didn't happen," says Anderson's attorney Will Knight. During closing arguments, Knight tells the jury the victim made up the story.
"Because he's angry, he's been told he's failing. Does he want to be a 13-year-old in 5th grade? Right after that is when he made the allegations."
But in the end, prosecutor Rita Peters convinced jurors that more than 230 explicit texts Anderson admits to sending the boy backs up his story.
