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A Henderson teacher who prosecutors claim has a history of sexual misconduct in Utah pleaded guilty Wednesday to seducing a 15-year-old student.
A Clark County prosecutor said he will seek prison time for Burkholder Middle School social studies teacher Newell Leavitt, 48, during a sentencing hearing in September.
"I think he deserves it," Chief Deputy District Attorney William Kephart said of Leavitt. "We send our children to school, and we expect them to be safe."
In the courtroom of District Judge Kathy Hardcastle, Leavitt pleaded guilty to one felony count of statutory sexual seduction. He also entered an Alford plea to a charge of felony child abuse. The plea is not an admission of guilt, but it acknowledges that the state has enough evidence to prove the charge.
According to court filings, a 15-year-old girl told authorities that she went to Burkholder on Feb. 8 to run an errand. While there, the former Burkholder student ran into Leavitt, her former teacher.
The girl spent the afternoon in Leavitt's classroom until at some point the two were left alone and Leavitt made sexual advances. The girl said she resisted Leavitt's sexual advances, but he persisted, and the two eventually had intercourse.
After the encounter, the girl went home and told a friend. That friend told her mother what happened, and the police were called, prompting Leavitt's arrest on sex assault charges.
Leavitt's attorney, Kevin Kelly, said after court Wednesday that his client acknowledged having sex with the girl, but he said the sex was consensual.
"He had consensual sex, and it was wrong," Kelly said.
An administrator with the Clark County School District said Leavitt's guilty plea means the district's termination proceedings against the teacher will begin immediately.
"A conviction of any felony or any other crime of moral turpitude is grounds for dismissal," said district administrator Edward Goldman.
According to prosecutors, Leavitt had been accused previously of having sex with a student. Kephart said Leavitt was accused of having sex with a freshman at Cedar City High School in 1987. The girl became pregnant and filed a paternity action against Leavitt. Kelly said a paternity test proved Leavitt was not the father of the baby.
Despite the public airing of those allegations in Cedar City, the Clark County School District hired Leavitt in 1991. Goldman said the school district was unaware of the allegations, primarily because Leavitt received positive references from an administrator with the Iron County, Utah, School District.
A spokesman for that school district did not return a phone call Wednesday.
Kephart said Leavitt was the subject of another sex-related complaint in Utah in 1994, when he was a teacher in Las Vegas. According to court filings, Leavitt's former girlfriend told Cedar City police that Leavitt showed up on her doorstep late at night in 1994.
Leavitt made sexual advances, but the woman fought him off.
"(Leavitt) then sat down on a chair, holding (her) on his lap, and masturbated," the court filings state.
Kephart said a police report was filed, but no arrest was made. Kelly disputed the allegations, saying Leavitt told him he doesn't even know the woman.
Leavitt is one of eight Clark County School District employees arrested since February on sex charges. He is also the second teacher from Utah to be hired by the school district despite a questionable past.
Teacher Duane C. Johnson, 36, was accused by police in March of committing a sex offense against a 13-year-old Clark County student.
In 1992, Johnson was fired from his position as a
football coach at Provo High School because of a
former student's pregnancy. The Utah State Board of
Education revoked Johnson's teaching license, but
Johnson still received positive references from Utah
educators and the head coach of the Brigham Young
University football team.
Gee, in my town, the teacher was a lesbian making advances at female students...I think she was terminated. The school actually defended her at first--but the evidence piled up and they suspended her, if I remember correctly.
Same in my HS. A "couple" teaching girl's gym and a male history teacher. Unlike today, they didn't hit on kids. Everyone knew and nobody cared. The history teach even got special consideration from us (less mocking than normal) because he was different.Unfortunately for him, he did get busted in the men's room of a truck stop. No one ever saw him again.
...but Johnson still received positive references from Utah educators and the head coach of the Brigham Young University football team.
A.K.A, Breed 'em Young University.
They hide out for a while,but these wierdos show up to mess up more kids lives.
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