Teacher Offered Deal in Preteen Sex Case

(West Palm Beach, Florida) Arrested in 2004 and charged with having a long-term sexual relationship with a student she seduced at age 11, Carol Flannigan has until Tuesday to decide whether to accept a plea deal specifying five years in prison or risk a possible mandatory life sentence if convicted at trial.

The 51-year-old former music teacher at Rolling Green Elementary School in Boynton Beach is charged with capital sexual battery on a child under 12. Circuit Judge Lucy Chernow Brown asked Prosecutor Jennifer Millien to make the plea offer public on Thursday. The boy's family concurred.

The details of the case are sordid. Flannigan, as the 11-year-old boy's teacher, struck up a friendship with the boy's family such that he and his siblings would sleep over at her home. She began having sex with the boy and continued for 19 months, engaging in sexual encounters at the elementary school (classroom, office and storage room), in her vehicle at the parking lot of the Civil Air Patrol, at an Orlando hotel, and at a park. As a reminder, Flannigan was a 50-year-old woman having sex with a boy who was only 11.

And there's more. According to the boy, he and his teacher had sex together while in the same bed with Flannigan's husband, Douglas DePue, who witnessed the sex but chose to ignore it. It's also been reported that Flannigan had sex with the boy's father, which he has acknowledged. Subsequently, and astonishingly, the boy's father sued Douglas DePue and settled with his insurance company for $1.5 million. There are also lawsuits pending against the Palm Beach County School Board and the Civil Air Patrol.

If Flannigan concurs with the agreement, she will plead guilty in exchange for a five-year prison sentence followed by 10 years of sex offender probation. The probation would impose a curfew, allow for warrantless searches and require her to register as a sex offender. Flannigan would also be prohibited from being within "1,000 feet of a school, daycare center or anywhere children are known to congregate."

Interestingly, there has been no mention of drugs or alcohol or insanity or anything else to provide mitigation for Flannigan's crime. Typically, one would expect something to be introduced into the case to excuse such base and immoral behavior. So far, however, there's been no indication of what type of defense Ken Ronan, Flannigan's lawyer, intends.

Based upon the nature of the Flannigan case and all the disgusting details, it would probably be prudent for her to accept the plea agreement. I think a jury would put her away forever. (Tipped by: Don Morgenstern)


[Update 03/01/06]

Carol Flannigan sentenced.