A teacher from Camp Verde who is accused of sex play with a 17-year-old student at a Cottonwood charter school has now been indicted.
Emili Kay Daniels, a 34-year-old biology teacher at American Heritage Academy, was apparently well liked by students, according to article responses posted on verdenews.com. But Sheriff's Office investigators found she had become inappropriately close to one of her male students.
She appeared before Judge Tina Ainley March 12 for the usual Early Disposition Court hearing, but chose not to waive a preliminary hearing. The preliminary hearing, to see if evidence exists to take the case to trial, was set for the following afternoon in Ainley's courtroom.
At the time, the judge warned that scheduling a preliminary hearing does not pre-empt a possible Grand Jury indictment. That is exactly what happened.
The Grand Jury was meeting at the same time as the EDC hearing and handed down an indictment against Daniels. The preliminary hearing was cancelled.
Daniels, under the indictment, is accused of three class-2 felonies of sexual conduct with a minor and one count of attempted sexual conduct with a minor, a class-3 offense.
With the case now on a trial track, Daniels is scheduled for a case management conference in mid-April.
The teacher was arrested March 6 after the school principal unlocked the teacher's classroom and found Daniels and the boy alone at her desk. His pants were undone, according to the accusation.
The boy, speaking to investigators, said he and the teacher were involved in sexually related incidents in or around the classroom at least three times.
She was jailed overnight and posted the $20,000 bond the following day.
The boy's guardians, at the EDC hearing, asked the judge to order that Daniels have no further contact with him.
The teacher was fired. The student remains enrolled at the school.
Posted: Thursday, March 26, 2009
Article comment by:
triumph110
This is happening all over the country. Go to www.schoolteachernews.com and click on the Scandal page. They have documented over 125 of these types of incidents just this year. In 2008 they found 479 of these kinds of cases.
