Fact Check: Florida Teacher NOT Jailed After Having Sex With Student Who Reported Her Due To Her Performance

Fact Check

  • by: Alan Duke
Fact Check: Florida Teacher NOT Jailed After Having Sex With Student Who Reported Her Due To Her Performance It's A Joke

Was a Florida teacher jailed after having sex with a student who then reported her because of her poor performance? No, that's not true: While a post making the claim does not give the teacher's name, the screenshot of a purported FOX News article uses a photo of an Alabama teacher arrested in 2017 and sent to prison in 2021 for having sex with two students. The FOX reporter whose name appeared on the byline confirmed to Lead Stories that he did not write the story.

The claim appeared as a post (archived here) posted by the Garbage Human Facebook page on July 7, 2021, with the headline "'Her Head Game Was Weak': FLA Teacher Jailed After Having Sex with Student Who Reported Her Due to Her Performance." It opened with a quote from the purported student:

I wasn't going to say anything at first, but like... if you're risking it all for this moment and your top game is nothing but teeth, you don't deserve to be teaching.

This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:

Facebook screenshot

(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Jul 9 15:38:49 2021 UTC)

The purported article is sparse on details. It does not name the teacher, the school or the city in Florida. Much of what it does include is easily proven false. The FOX reporter named in the byline on the story is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire. Lead Stories showed him the screenshot and he confirmed he did not write the article.

The mugshot of the teacher is not from Florida. It is the mugshot of a Decatur, Alabama, teacher arrested in 2017 for having sex with two male students. She was sentenced to prison in July 2021, according to WAAY-TV.

Another major mistake in the fake story is it includes a photo that apparently was intended to depict the teenaged victim. It would be illegal and unethical for a news outlet to identify the minor victim of a sex crime.

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  Alan Duke

Editor-in-Chief Alan Duke co-founded Lead Stories after ending a 26-year career with CNN, where he mainly covered entertainment, current affairs and politics. Duke closely covered domestic terrorism cases for CNN, including the Oklahoma City federal building bombing, the UNABOMBER and search for Southeast bomber Eric Robert Rudolph. CNN moved Duke to Los Angeles in 2009 to cover the entertainment beat. Duke also co-hosted a daily podcast with former HLN host Nancy Grace, "Crime Stories with Nancy Grace" and hosted the podcast series "Stan Lee's World: His Real Life Battle with Heroes & Villains." You'll also see Duke in many news documentaries, including on the Reelz channel, CNN and HLN.

Read more about or contact Alan Duke

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