Teacher gets jail time for skipping school to film sex with teen student
A high school Spanish teacher who left school to have sex with a teen student and film it was sentenced to three years in jail, according to local reports.
Ekatherine Pappas, 25, pleaded guilty to three counts of misdemeanor fourth-degree sex offense last month and was sentenced in a Baltimore court Monday, though the judge suspended all but a year and a day of her sentence, the Baltimore Sun reported. The state dropped additional felony counts.
Police investigated after a sexually explicit video of Pappas and the 16-year-old made its way around the school in January.
“I cannot begin to explain the terror of being notified that my son had been sexually abused and it was on videotape that had been circulated throughout the school for others to see,” the victim’s father said in a statement to the court, adding that his son had not returned to school afterward.
The teacher traveled to Bogota, Colombia, in January on the same day police issued a warrant for her arrest. A Baltimore County police official told local TV station WBAL that investigators were not sure if the teacher’s trip had been previously planned.
She was arrested at Dulles International Airport upon her return a week later.
The student told police investigators that his teacher had asked him to cut class on two occasions, then took him to his house and sexually assaulted him, filming them on one occasion.
Pappas is a graduate of Loyola University and had been teaching at the high school for only a month.
Upon her release, she will spend five years on enhanced probation and will have to register as a sex offender for 15 years.
The boy’s father said his son and family have been affected “in devastating and profound ways.”
“As a young man, this entire ordeal has been extremely confusing for him, just as it would be for any victim that is exposed to sexual activity before they are at a level of maturity,” he said in his statement. “Our home is no longer viewed as a safe environment, since it is the location where the assault took place.”