Teacher Charged in Student Sex Case

(Hanford, California) Arrested last month, former teacher Elisa Kawasaki has been charged with having sex with a 16-year-old student.


Elisa Kawasaki
Kawasaki faces counts of unlawful sex with a minor and child molestation. She remains free on bail.

[Update 5/25/05] This past week, prosecutors in Kings County filed statutory rape charges against 25-year-old Kawasaki. Specifically, she faces one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and one count of annoying or molesting a child younger than 18. Under consideration is the possibility that charges will also be filed in Madera County since it's where most of the sexual encounters between Kawasaki and the boy occurred.

An odd aspect of this case is that Kawasaki started as a first-year teacher only last January and by April she had acquired an arrest record for molestation of a student. During her short tenure, she and the student scratched each other's itches on 15 to 20 different occasions. Consequently, it doesn't appear that her relationship with the boy matured slowly to intimacy over time. Kawasaki probably cut her colt from the herd and had him mounted within the first couple of weeks of class.