BREAKING: Boy-Crazy Former Teacher’s Student Sex Error Meets Correctional System: Meredith Powell Sentenced to 6 Months in Jail

Posted: August 29, 2014 | Author: Pundit Planet | Filed under: Breaking News, Crime & Corruption, Education, Law & Justice, U.S. News | Tags: Child sexual abuse, Lincoln High School, Meredith Powell, News Tribune, Powell, Tacoma Public Schools, Tacoma Washington, Teacher |Leave a comment

Former Lincoln High School teacher Meredith Claire Powell tears up as she hears her sentence in Pierce County Superior Court on Friday, August 29, 2014. LUI KIT WONG Tacoma News Tribune Staff photographer

After hearing that Powell will spend only six months in jail, several cursed, and one family member stormed out of the courtroom.

“I wish I could take back what happened to the students that I failed. Sorry doesn’t take away anything that happened, but I hope they can move forward with as little impact as possible.”

— Meredith Powell

Stacia Glenn reports: A former math teacher who had sex with two students at Tacoma’s Lincoln High School cried Friday after a judge sentenced her to six months in jail.

“Ms. Powell repeatedly talked about letting her students down. The reality is she committed child rape.”

— Shannon McMinimee, attorney for Tacoma Public Schools

Meredith Powell, 25, told the court she prays every day for the two teenage boys and is heartbroken that they and their families are suffering.

[Powell pleaded guilty last month to two counts of third-degree child rape and one count of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes, all felonies.]

“I feel like words can’t even express how sorry I am,” Powell said. “I wish I could take back what happened to the students that I failed. Sorry doesn’t take away anything that happened, but I hope they can move forward with as little impact as possible.”

She said she’s been attending weekly counseling and now faces problems that fueled her behavior, including being molested in her youth.

Pierce County Superior Court Judge Frank Cuthbertson said he believes Powell is remorseful, which is why he suspended all but six months of a 5-year sentence and ordered her into a three-year sex offender program open to first-time offenders.

Powell must register as a sex offender and can have no contact with children without adult supervision, with the exception of her younger sister.

She pleaded guilty last month to two counts of third-degree child rape and one count of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes, all felonies.

She was arrested in February after allegations she had sexual contact with several students. She later admitted she’d engaged in sex acts with two boys between the ages of 14 and 16. Both were students at Lincoln.

One of the teens went to Powell’s classroom instead of attending the school’s Martin Luther King Day assembly. The two kissed and engaged in sexual activity, prosecutors alleged.

A few days later Powell and the other boy kissed and she performed oral sex on the teen in her classroom…(read more)

The News Tribune

Stacia Glenn: stacia.glenn@thenewstribune.com