10/9/07: Teen Pleaded For Mercy For Ex-Teacher
TAMPA - Former Wharton High School teacher and coach Jaymee Wallace, 30, received three years in prison today for lewd and lascivious battery and unlawful sexual activity with a minor student.
Jaymee Wallace
That will be followed by three years of probation.
She had friends and family in court begging for no prison term. The victim's family asked for at least three years.
The decision came after a roughly three-hour highly emotional hearing.
Plea negotiations in October were unsuccessful, so Wallace entered an open plea, allowing the judge to decide her sentence.
In October, Assistant State Attorney Kimberly Hindman told Padgett the case "arose out of a consensual, a consensual in quotes relationship" that began between the coach and the victim - now 18 - just before the girl's 15th birthday, an age when the girl could not legally consent. The relationship continued for nearly two years, even after Wallace married in the summer of 2004, Hindman said.
Wallace was the girl's math teacher and basketball coach. She stapled a note to the girl's math test telling her she found her attractive and asking what she thought of that, Hindman said.
If the case went to trial, the prosecutor said, she would present witnesses to "intimate contact" between the defendant and the victim, if not actual sexual activity.
At least two witnesses would have testified that Wallace told them about the relationship and sought their advice, Hindman said.
Hindman said the prosecution "is sensitive and mindful of the wishes of the victim" but must take into account its obligation "to the public as a whole." Therefore, she said, she thought a three-year sentence and subsequent term of sex-offender probation would serve justice.
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