Teacher Allegedly Performed Sex Acts on Boy 

(Fort Worth, Texas) Popular 27-year-old third-grade teacher at Durham Elementary School, Michelle Dawn Sewell, was arrested in March 2005 and charged with repeatedly performing sex acts on a Carroll High School student at her Grapevine apartment. Sewell subsequently resigned her teaching position and was released on $10,000 bail.

This week, Michelle Dawn Sewell, now 28, went to trial before a jury of eight men and four women on charges of one count of sexual assault of a child and three counts of indecency with a child. Sewell's attorney, Bob Hinton, entered not guilty pleas on her behalf in Criminal District Court No. 372.

From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

In his opening statement to the jury of eight men and four women, prosecutor Steve Jumes said that Sewell had been friends of the boy's family for years before her arrest. The boy is not being named because he is a juvenile.

Sewell went to restaurants, movies and church with the family before the assaults happened, Jumes said. She even took ski trips with the family, he said.

"She told a friend that, 'I don't need a boyfriend; [the teenager] fills that void,'" Jumes told jurors.

The relationship was not that of a brother and sister, he said.

"She felt her biological clock ticking," Jumes said. "He was filling that void."

In Sewell's defense, attorney Hinton called the 16-year-old boy a liar and said he was a confused young man who hated his father and had an overbearing mother.

The police started investigating Sewell after her close friend, Jill Price, mentioned the relationship of Sewell and the boy to another Durham Elementary School teacher. Under subpoena, Price told the court on Wednesday,

"I kept telling her that you are not putting yourself in a good situation," Price said. "She said, 'I know, I know.'"

The trial continues.


[Update 03/25/06]

After less than three hours of deliberation, a Tarrant County jury acquitted Michelle Dawn Sewell of all charges.