Tuesday, April 4, 2006

TEACHERS GONE WILD

Here we go again...

Another teacher strays from the lesson plan and focuses on extracurricular activities with an underage student.



Rachel Holt
The News Journal reports:

A 34-year-old teacher from the Brandywine School District has been charged with having a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old student.

Rachel L. Holt, a science teacher at Claymont Elementary School, allegedly had sex with the boy 28 times during one week in March, according to New Castle County police spokesman Cpl. Trinidad Navarro.

Holt, who lives in Palladin Club Apartments, has been charged with 21 counts of first degree rape, two counts of providing alcohol to a minor and one count of unlawfully dealing with a minor.

The big question:

Is Holt bipolar?

Playing the bipolar card didn't work for Mary Kay LeTourneau.

It was effective for
Debra Lafave.

When her sexual antics with her eighth grade, fourteen-year-old student were exposed, she received seven years probation and three years house arrest for offenses in Hillsborough County, Florida. Similar Charges brought against her in Marion County were dropped.

When Lafave got the good news, she held a news conference and declared, "I believe my mental illness had a lot to do with my actions. I offer my deepest apology. I am very remorseful. I want the world to see that bipolar is real."

Will Holt rely on the bipolar defense?

It's a gamble, but she should probably claim some form of mental disorder. There's not much else Holt can do to defend her actions.

Lafave got lucky. She avoided a trial because the parents of the boy she had sex with didn't want him to testify, and the prosecution was left without a case.

Lafave, with the help of her lawyer, then proceeded to present herself as a sympathetic figure. She was a victim of her disease, not a sex offender.

Mental illness may provide an explanation for behavior, but that's not the same as an excuse.

Unless they are certified insane, these teachers that choose to have sex with children have to be dealt with harshly.

They are criminals. They are child abusers.

No comments: