Teacher Nets 30 Days for Sex with Student

(Farmington, Missouri) In early 2005, a 24-year-old teacher, Bethany Sherrill, was investigated and charged with molesting a 14-year-old male student. A St. Francois County grand jury issued a formal indictment of Sherrill in April 2005 for statutory sodomy.

On Wednesday of this week, Sherrill was sentenced in accordance with a plea agreement.

From Daily Journal Online:

Bethany Sherrill, 25, of Farmington, entered an Alford plea to a misdemeanor charge of first-degree sexual misconduct by contact. With an Alford plea, she did not admit to any element of the charge but recognized there was sufficient evidence for trial, which was scheduled next week.

As part of the plea agreement worked out between her attorney, Lindell Dunivan and Prosecuting Attorney Wendy Wexler Horn, the charge was amended from felony second-degree statutory sodomy to the misdemeanor charge.

Sherrill will have to serve 30 days in the county jail and will also have to serve two years of supervised probation. As part of the probation, she will have to register as a sex offender; undergo sex offender education and counseling; have no contact with the victim or his family; have no employment geared toward children; and surrender her teaching certificate.

Circuit Court Judge Kenneth W. Pratte gave Sherrill some options for serving her 30 days in jail because she recently gave birth. Sherrill must complete her jail term sometime within the next six months.

Sherrill's sentence of 30 days for a sex crime is lenient and I personally don't agree with turning felony sex crimes into misdemeanors. However, given that she lives in a small rural midwestern town and her father-in-law is a former president of the school board, her sentence also includes a high-profile public stigma which won't be washed from the memories of her neighbors anytime soon.