Oct 25, 2007 12:20 am US/Eastern
Tampa Teacher Confesses To Sex With Minor
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TAMPA (CBS4) ―
A 33-year-old Tampa high-school teacher was arrested Wednesday after admitting that she had sex with a 16-year-old student, police said.
Christina Butler, a ninth-grade special education teacher at Middleton High School, admitted to the relationship with the boy after a series of events Tuesday that began with a police stakeout targeting street crime at an apartment complex, police said.
Officers first followed a group of six boys who left the apartment complex on bicycles, the report said. Later, the same group was pulled over driving erratically in Butler's Jeep Grand Cherokee.
The 16-year-old driver, who did not have a license, told police that his friend Butler let him use the vehicle. Another boy told an officer that the driver was involved in a relationship with the teacher.
Butler, a first-year teacher, was called to the scene and questioned by officers who said she eventually admitted having sex with the student, whom she taught in one of her classes.
Charged with lewd or lascivious battery, she was released early
Wednesday after posting $7,500 bail, according to jail records, which did not indicate if she had an attorney. A working phone number could not be located for her Wednesday.
She was suspended with pay from her $35,000-a-year job until the school board can address the situation, district spokesman Steve Hegarty said. She got her bachelor's degree from the University of Tampa last year and had been employed in the district since August, he said.
A recent investigation by The Associated Press showed that between 2001 and 2005, Florida revoked, denied or suspended licenses or took other sanctions against at least 100 teachers who were accused of sexual misconduct.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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