Teh One Who Knocks
01-22-2013, 12:18 PM
By F.T. Norton - The Star News Online
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A former Brunswick County teacher charged with having sex with a student pleaded guilty last month to a lesser charge after she married the victim, preventing the state from compelling him to testify against her, a prosecutor said this week.
Leah Gayle Shipman, 42, pleaded guilty Dec. 20 to misdemeanor resisting a public officer.
Shipman was a married Brunswick County Academy teacher when she was arrested in January 2009 on charges of sexual offense with a student, statutory rape and taking indecent liberties with a student. Shipman was immediately suspended from her job and her contract wasn't renewed.
Court records indicate that on Jan. 19, 2011, she divorced her husband of 19 years, and on Jan. 25, 2011, Shipman married student Johnnie Ray Ison in Brunswick County after obtaining a marriage license from Columbus County. According to the Columbus County register of deeds office, Ison was 17 at the time of the marriage, and his mother, Susan Wilson, signed the paperwork allowing him to marry.
Brunswick County Assistant District Attorney Gina Essey said Shipman was offered the plea because, despite Ison's admissions to investigators that he and Shipman engaged in sex when he was 15, those statement's were inadmissable in court if he didn't testify.
“The defendant has a Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses against them. Statements made to police officers are inadmissible hearsay except in certain circumstances,...” Essey said. “None of the statements made in this case would be admissible without the victim. The state pled (her) to what we could prove without the victim.”
Under North Carolina law, the spouse of a defendant cannot be compelled to testify against the defendant in criminal cases or grand jury proceedings except in cases of bigamy; domestic violence; trespassing, when one trespasses upon another's property during a separation; abandonment or criminal offenses against a minor child of either spouse.
The charge to which Shipman pleaded stems from text messages and phone calls she made to the victim during his police interrogation at the investigation stage.
“The police witnessed the texts, and we were able to get them from the phone,” Essey said.
Shipman was sentenced to a suspended 30-day jail sentence, 12 months of probation and $345 in restitution. She was also ordered to surrender her teaching license.
On the same day, Ison, now 19, pleaded guilty on unrelated charges to one felony count of breaking and entering and two counts of larceny, Department of Correction records indicate. He received 24 months probation.
http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/944/watermarkgl.jpg
A former Brunswick County teacher charged with having sex with a student pleaded guilty last month to a lesser charge after she married the victim, preventing the state from compelling him to testify against her, a prosecutor said this week.
Leah Gayle Shipman, 42, pleaded guilty Dec. 20 to misdemeanor resisting a public officer.
Shipman was a married Brunswick County Academy teacher when she was arrested in January 2009 on charges of sexual offense with a student, statutory rape and taking indecent liberties with a student. Shipman was immediately suspended from her job and her contract wasn't renewed.
Court records indicate that on Jan. 19, 2011, she divorced her husband of 19 years, and on Jan. 25, 2011, Shipman married student Johnnie Ray Ison in Brunswick County after obtaining a marriage license from Columbus County. According to the Columbus County register of deeds office, Ison was 17 at the time of the marriage, and his mother, Susan Wilson, signed the paperwork allowing him to marry.
Brunswick County Assistant District Attorney Gina Essey said Shipman was offered the plea because, despite Ison's admissions to investigators that he and Shipman engaged in sex when he was 15, those statement's were inadmissable in court if he didn't testify.
“The defendant has a Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses against them. Statements made to police officers are inadmissible hearsay except in certain circumstances,...” Essey said. “None of the statements made in this case would be admissible without the victim. The state pled (her) to what we could prove without the victim.”
Under North Carolina law, the spouse of a defendant cannot be compelled to testify against the defendant in criminal cases or grand jury proceedings except in cases of bigamy; domestic violence; trespassing, when one trespasses upon another's property during a separation; abandonment or criminal offenses against a minor child of either spouse.
The charge to which Shipman pleaded stems from text messages and phone calls she made to the victim during his police interrogation at the investigation stage.
“The police witnessed the texts, and we were able to get them from the phone,” Essey said.
Shipman was sentenced to a suspended 30-day jail sentence, 12 months of probation and $345 in restitution. She was also ordered to surrender her teaching license.
On the same day, Ison, now 19, pleaded guilty on unrelated charges to one felony count of breaking and entering and two counts of larceny, Department of Correction records indicate. He received 24 months probation.