The Other McCain

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Lauren Harrington-Cooper and Other Teachers Arrested for Sex Crimes

Posted on | January 11, 2014 | 62 Comments

Lauren Harrington-Cooper likes teenage semen, allegedly.

If you pay attention to the news, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that America’s public schools are staffed by sex-crazed perverts, including this accused molester of teen boyflesh in Pennslyvania:

A married Pennsylvania high school teacher was arrested again on Thursday, accused of having sex with a second teenage student.
Lauren Harrington-Cooper, 31, of Wyoming Valley West High School, faces new allegations that she sent racy text messages and had sexual contact with a 17-year-old boy starting in October 2013.
This arrest comes just a month after she was charged having sex with a different 18-year-old student in December. Harrington-Cooper has been suspended without pay from her teaching job.
Harrington-Cooper, of Kingston, Pennsylvania, is accused of meeting up with the teenager on several occasions after they sent each other text messages, then kissing and having oral sex.
The Citizen’s Voice reports that the boy told authorities that he picked up the teacher at her home and they drove around for 90 minutes before kissing in the car outside her house.
After the pair continued to text they met up again and Harrington-Cooper allegedly performed oral sex on the 17-year-old student in a parked car. . . .
[Harrington-Cooper’s previous] arrest came after the alleged victim’s parents found a sexually explicit conversation on a laptop between Harrington-Cooper and the boy, 18.
The parents went to Wyoming Valley West High School and informed the principal of the material and Harrington-Cooper was arraigned on a single count of institutional sexual assault.
According to the Times-Leader, Harrington-Cooper, a ninth-grade English teacher at the school, told the victim’s sister she thought he was ‘hot.’
The boy obtained Harrington-Cooper’s phone number from his sister and the pair exchanged text messages.
They agreed to meet up and Harrington-Cooper picked the boy up near his home several times during which they had sex and the teacher performed oral sex on the boy in the car.

So, the blow-job-in-the-car appears to be Harrington-Cooper’s preferred modus operandi, but what’s the deal with this guy’s sister helping him hook up with the English teacher? I mean . . . yuck.

However, such crimes are far from unusual, as we have frequently observed, and here are just a few recent examples:

Roger French couldn’t resist teenage girl, allegedly.

COLORADO SPRINGS:

Just three months after starting a new job at a local high school, arrest papers allege a 31-year-old science teacher started a relationship with one of his students. . . .
Roger French Jr. first met the victim in one of the classes he taught at Mesa Ridge High School, then took the relationship a step further by stopping by her job in November.
That’s where the two allegedly kissed for the first time.
The arrest affidavit says things escalated into a sexual relationship after French asked the victim to babysit his roommate’s kids a month later.
When asked about the alleged abuse, the arrest affidavit says French called it a “judgment error.”
“It wasn’t good, I got too close to her. I made judgment errors … I kept pumping the brakes, I couldn’t stop, it’s like I am going off a cliff.”

Kimberly Brody got caught with a naked boy in a truck, allegedly.

JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA:

A Clay County elementary school teacher was arrested early Monday after being found together with a youth without most of their clothes on, according to an arrest report from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
Kimberly Hillard Brody, 40, was arrested in the 7300 block of Westland Oaks Drive after police were called there on a report of a suspicious vehicle about 12:30 a.m. Monday.
Brody was in a pickup truck with nothing on but a sweater, the arrest report said. The boy was completely naked outside the truck. It was unclear what the boy was doing at that point, because the report was redacted. But it did say police interrupted them having sex.
Brody is charged with unlawful sexual activity with minor 16 to 17 years old.
She has been a second-grade teacher at W.E. Cherry Elementary School for two years, according to Clay County school district spokesman Gavin Rollins.

Bresnniel Mones boned a 17-year-old, allegedly.

MIAMI:

A South Dade Senior High math teacher was arrested late Wednesday and charged with having sex with a student.
According to Miami-Dade Schools police, Bresnniel Jansen Mones, 32, had sex with a 17-year-old female student. In one instance, he received oral sex in his geometry classroom, according to his arrest report.
Police say they confiscated Jansen’s phone after he also admitted to sexting with the student. . . .
Jansen was charged with two counts of sex with a minor and one count of transmission of harmful material to a minor. . . .
The incident is the second time in two years that a South Dade teacher has been accused of having sex with a student. In March 2012, police said physical education teacher Jimmy Francisco Vega lured a student off campus, gave her marijuana and then had her perform oral sex.

With all these teachers having sex with students, you may ask: “What about the school staff? Are lunch ladies getting any action?”

Cafeteria worker Janelle Foley did her friend’s 15-year-old son, allegedly.

WEYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS:

A food service worker at a Massachusetts middle school is accused of raping a boy.
Janelle Foley faces four counts of statutory rape for allegedly sexually assaulting her friend’s 15-year-old son, according to the Boston Herald.
Foley, who was arrested Wednesday by Weymouth police, was put on leave from her job at Chapman Middle School, administrators said in a statement. . . .
The 36-year-old was arraigned Thursday in Quincy District Court. According to prosecutors, the alleged rapes took place during holiday parties at the boy’s family’s house in November and December. . . .
Foley’s attorney, William Sullivan, said his client suffered from depression and substance abuse, and that those problems may have resulted in a “lapse in judgment.”

Well, these are just allegations. Certainly, if a teacher were actually convicted of such offenses, the punishment would be severe, right?

Boy-raper Laura Whitehurst served four months behind bars.

REDLANDS, CALIFORNIA:

A California teacher — sentenced to a year in prison after she pleaded guilty to having sex with an underage student and having his baby last year — was released on Sunday.
Laura Elizabeth Whitehurst, 29, was released eight months before her sentence was to be completed. Whitehurst must register as a sex offender within five days of her release, and must wear a GPS tracking device, a district attorney spokesman told the San Bernardino Sun.
Whitehurst was arrested in July, two weeks after she gave birth to a baby that she conceived with a 16-year-old student, according to police. . . .
After the allegations were reported, two additional students, now adults, came forward and claimed they had sex with the former Citrus Valley High School teacher.
In August, Whitehurst pleaded guilty to having sex with three different students and was sentenced to a year in San Bernardino County jail, and five years’ probation.
Whitehurst originally faced 41 felony charges, which carried a maximum sentence of 29 years in prison. The remaining counts were dismissed at her sentencing.

She had sex with three students, gave birth to a 16-year-old boy’s baby and served a whopping four months in jail. That’s the kind of tough sentence that shows how serious they are about preventing sexual molestation in California, i.e., not very serious at all.

 

 

Category: Crime, Education, Sex

Comments

62 Responses to “Lauren Harrington-Cooper and Other Teachers Arrested for Sex Crimes”

  1. John Reece
    January 12th, 2014 @ 7:57 pm

    This 59-year-old is looking at the picture of Lauren and wondering “where were you when I was in high school?”. Then I start to realize she’s too young for me to even think about a fling at my age….

    The difference, for all you grumps harrumphing about equal treatment regarding teacher ‘predators’, is that teenage boys get lucky, teenage girls get pregnant.

  2. dwpittelli
    January 12th, 2014 @ 10:46 pm

    I can accept that my back-of-the-envelope estimate may be off by an order of magnitude, or perhaps even two. But Ms. Shakeshaft’s 2004 study does not, in fact, show this, let alone that it is off by 3 orders of magnitude, as the activities she considers are not the same.

    Her study found that 10% of students were victims, not that 10% of employees were perpetrators. Further, this 10% victimization figure related to “sexual misconduct” not “sexual abuse” or “sexual molestation.” Sexual misconduct was defined to include “Any conduct that would amount to sexual harassment under Title IX.” This could include being told risque jokes or being blocked in a hallway, if the student thought this was being done “in a sexual way.” (A dilemma I’ve faced, and discussed in more than one faculty lunch room, is how to teach sex ed without risk of offending a student who might lodge a complaint.)

    Her study is also based on surveys of 20 years ago now, and thus is hardly evidence of a moral corruption that is worsening or “corroding” now. Finally, when you hand out polls to high school students you can expect a significant percentage of them to want to screw with the survey. Suppose that is 10% of them. If you get a 50% affirmative response for something, then it’s likely the truth is between 40% and 60%, which is effectively the same news. But with the same 10% error rate, a 10% affirmative response becomes quite meaningless. (You might get 10% of the students to say they’ve been abducted by aliens, if you give out a survey which appears to take such a suggestion seriously.)

    That said, if 1% or even 1 in 1000 high school teachers has had sex with a minor student, I agree that that is a sign that we need to redouble efforts to catch and prosecute such people. I thank you for the mention of Ms.
    Shakeshaft’s interesting and troubling study.

    http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/misconductreview/report.pdf

  3. dwpittelli
    January 12th, 2014 @ 11:07 pm

    1) I cannot speak to other states, but the vetting in Massachusetts is the same for public and private schools, and depends on the state government. (CORI)

    2) I do agree that public school unions are an impediment to firing in many districts.

    3) Regardless of any difference in scrutiny, there will always be more opportunities to abuse children in boarding schools, and thus probably more actual sexual abuse occurring, than in private day schools or public schools.

    4) I don’t know of any evidence one way or the other for the relative frequency of teachers moving to new private or public schools after being forced out of one for sexual activity.

  4. dwpittelli
    January 12th, 2014 @ 11:11 pm

    I can accept that my back-of-the-envelope estimate may be
    off by an order of magnitude, or perhaps even two. But Ms. Shakeshaft’s 2004 study does not, in fact, show this, let alone that it is off by 3 orders of magnitude, as the activities she considers are not the same.

    Her study found that 10% of students were victims, not that
    10% of employees were perpetrators. Further, this 10% victimization figure related to “sexual misconduct” not “sexual abuse” or “sexual molestation.” Sexual misconduct was defined to include “Any conduct that would amount to sexual harassment under Title IX.” This could include being told risque jokes or being blocked in a hallway, if the student thought this was being done “in a sexual way.” (A dilemma I’ve faced, and discussed in more than one faculty lunch room, is how to teach sex ed without risk of offending a student who might lodge a complaint.)

    Her study is also based on surveys of 20 years ago now, and thus is hardly evidence of a moral corruption that is worsening or
    “corroding” now. Finally, when you hand out polls to high school
    students you can expect a significant percentage of them to want to screw with the survey. Suppose that is 10% of them. If you get a 50% affirmative response for something, then it’s likely the truth is between 40% and 60%, which iseffectively the same news. But with the same 10% error rate, a 10% affirmative response becomes quite meaningless. (You might get 10% of the students to say they’ve been abducted by aliens, if you give out a survey which appears to take such a suggestion seriously.) It is true that only counting legal cases would almost certainly give an underestimate, but that doesn’t make casual surveys with 50% response rates a better estimate.

    That said, if 1% or even 1 in 1000 high school teachers has had sex with a minor student, I agree that that is a sign that we need to redouble efforts to catch and prosecute such people. “Passing the trash” (allowing offending teachers to move to new school districts) is particularly unacceptable, and is well documented in Ms. Shakeshaft’s
    interesting and troubling study, for which information I am thankful to you.

    http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/misconductreview/report.pdf

  5. Steve Kellmeyer
    January 12th, 2014 @ 11:19 pm

    Actually, according to insurance companies, the homosexual pedophiles congregate around any organization that has kids. Not military, not church – just kids. Prior to the last decade, the Catholic Church had more schools than any other private organization.

    That said, the 10% public school abuse figure is discussed in other places:
    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/02/is_sexual_abuse_in_schools_very_common_.html

    An Associated Press investigation found more than 2,500 cases over five years in which educators were punished for actions from bizarre to sadistic.
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/21/AR2007102100144.html

    2010 Report: “Since 2007, over 2,000 separate sexual abuse cases have been filed against U. S. public school employees.” Read more: http://digitaljournal.com/article/290312#ixzz2qFTuO3T7

    Just google it. There’s tons of examples.

  6. K-Bob
    January 13th, 2014 @ 12:39 am

    Well, yeah, but that’s a different demographic. Plenty of priests are non-molesting, not-sexually-active homosexuals.

    Pedophiles are a different group (some percentage of which are homosexual).. Sure, there’s demographic crossover going on in the priesthood, but a huge number of men in the Catholic Clergy are not working with or spend much time around children.

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  8. La Pucelle
    January 13th, 2014 @ 4:44 pm

    I wouldn’t even say that much, as pagan cultures did have some institutions to preserve the raising of children in order to preserve the culture (as you can’t have a culture which doesn’t have new generations).

    This is a straight-up hedonism cult.

  9. Tom Billings
    January 14th, 2014 @ 12:22 pm

    That the perception may have been valid in the past in some parts of society is not at issue. However, we should not be surprised to see changes in acceptable behavior, not only between different times, but between different groups within our heterogenous society, as their access to the legal system changes.

    In the past, in some sectors of society, fathers, learning about such behavior would then to pass it off, for sons, but not daughters. However, even then, I doubt mothers would want to leave any child in a school where they thought this was tolerated. Their assumptions about future pain to any child, since bonds from oxytocin release are stronger in women, are different than for men. They simply had less clout with the legal system in previous centuries.

  10. Tom Billings
    January 14th, 2014 @ 12:27 pm

    In the faster pace of industrial society, norms about what is deviant will change faster than in older cultures. Enforcement of norms can change even faster, as access for people to the legal system opens up to those who had less access before.

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