A Texas middle school teacher is facing felony charges after reportedly admitting to having a sexual relationship with her 13-year-old student. Alexandria Vera says the boy’s family approved of the affair and were even supportive when she became pregnant. (The Washington Post)
A former Texas middle-school teacher who was impregnated by a 13-year-old student has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Alexandria Vera, 25, was facing up to 30 years behind bars after pleading guilty to aggravated sexual assault of a child in November. She admitted to police that a relationship that started with Instagram messages between her and the boy blossomed into a romance — one that the boy’s family approved of.
A judge in the 209th District Court in Houston said during Vera’s sentencing hearing on Friday that he does not believe the former English teacher is a danger to children or a classic pedophile, the Houston Chronicle reported. But Judge Michael McSpadden said he wants to send a message to the community by giving Vera some prison time.
“We want our educators to teach our students,” McSpadden said, according to the Houston Chronicle. “We want them to keep their hands off students.”
Vera, an eighth-grade teacher at Stovall Middle School in Houston, was arrested in June and initially chabrged with continuous sexual assault of a child, which carries a maximum of life imprisonment. Her sentence was capped at 30 years after she pleaded guilty.
Vera told police that she met the boy during summer school in 2015. She said she initially resisted the boy’s advances until sometime last fall, when she agreed to hang out with her student.
Prosecutors say Vera and the teen had sex almost every day for nine months. She told investigators that they love each other, according to court documents. During the relationship, Vera told her neighbors that the boy was her brother, according to KHOU, a CBS affiliate.
Prosecutors say Vera groomed the child and his family, even moving the teen and his father into her home and pretending she was dating the father, the Houston Chronicle reported. She also bought groceries for the boy’s family and paid the phone bills.
