A former Alabama teacher was sentenced to prison yesterday after pleading guilty to charges of having sex with an underage student.
Charli Jones Parker, a former teacher at Pickens Academy in Carrolton, Alabama, was arrested in early 2016 and indicted on 13 counts of a school employee having sex with a (male) student under the age of 19, starting in 2014. Some of these encounters took place at a nearby cemetery, and others took place at Paker’s home.
Parker’s husband, “Jamie” Parker was arrested on similar charges for sexual encounters with a female student a few days after his wife, in early 2016, as he was a coach at the school. At the time of the Parkers’ arrests, authorities said none of the criminal sexual activity occurred at Pickens Academy, and both Charli and Jamie were immediately terminated from the school upon their 2016 arrests.
Yesterday, Charli Parker’s was sentenced to 12 years in prison. However, according to her plea agreement, she will only have to serve three years behind bars, and five additional years of probation. Mrs. Parker must also follow the state’s sex offender law, precluding her from contact with the victim.
As we reported earlier this month, however, a judge overturned Alabama’s law governing sex between students and teachers in a separate case, and it’s unclear what bearing that decision may have in this case.
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