Jenna Leahey, a former 35-year-old New Jersey high school teacher who sent sexually-charged text messages to a 16-year-old student, was sentenced to five years in prison on Monday, April 10.
Jenna Leahey, a 35-year-old New Jersey high school teacher who sent sexually-charged text messages to a 16-year-old student, was sentenced to five years in prison on Monday, April 10.
Leahey, of Mount Olive, New Jersey pleaded guilty to one count of endangering the welfare of a child by engaging in conduct that would debauch or impair the morals of a minor.
Leahey will be eligible for parole in a year.
Via Daily Record:
Defendant Jenna Leahey, now 35 of Boonton and formerly of Flanders, had avoided trial on a more serious charge of official misconduct by pleading guilty in January to endangering the welfare of a child by exchanging sexually-graphic texts with a male junior student in 2013.
The victim, now 20 and with a pending lawsuit against Leahey and the Parsippany school district, was in Superior Court Monday for the sentencing, accompanied by his mother and a small group of other friends and relatives. Leahey had admitted in January to sexting the then-student between February and June 2013.
Prosecutors obtained text messages that Leahey sent to the student, one of which said, “I’m horny all the time.”
The former English teacher and field hockey coach at Parsippany Hills High School in New Jersey was originally charged with sexual assault and official misconduct.
The victim, now 20, has a pending lawsuit against Leahey and the Parsippany school district.
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