Teacher Jaymee Wallace Gets Prison

(Tampa, Florida) In November 2005, 28-year-old math teacher and girls' basketball coach at Wharton High School, Jaymee Wallace, was accused of engaging in a two-year sexual relationship with a female student, staring when the girl was 14.

Police began investigating upon being alerted to the sexual relationship by a relative of the student. Wallace surrendered to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office and was booked into custody on one felony count of lewd and lascivious battery. She was released on bond.

In October 2007, Jaymee Wallace pleaded guilty to charges of lewd and lascivious battery and unlawful sexual activity with a minor. Wallace had earlier rejected a plea bargain of three years in prison, hoping that the judge would be more lenient.

Prosecutor Kimberly Hindman said the 19-month relationship began with a note Wallace attached to the almost 15-year-old student's math test in December 2002.

I think you're attractive, it said. Do you feel the same?

Notes progressed to trysts in Wallace's car, in her Tampa Palms apartment and near a running trail at the University of South Florida.

The encounters continued after Wallace, now 30, married teacher and coach Craig Wallace in June 2003.

During the October hearing, the teen victim, now 19, sobbed and said she wanted no jail time for Wallace. Her glaringly angry mother, however, did.

Yesterday, 30-year-old Jaymee Wallace was sentenced by Hillsborough Circuit Judge J. Rogers Padgett to three years in prison followed by three years of sex offender probation and registration as a sex offender.

The petite woman sobbed as she asked the victim's family and the judge to show mercy.

"I am deeply sorry for crossing the lines and boundaries that never should have been crossed," she said. "Please don't send me to prison." [ ... ]

Defense attorney Joe Bodiford said his client suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder; she watched her father abuse her mother and older siblings, and she aborted her first pregnancy.

Arguing that the victim was a willing participant, he asked for probation.

Judge Padgett then announced the sentence and Wallace was led off by deputies.

Notably, the Wallace case was adjudicated in the same judicial circuit as the Debra Lafave case, with substantially different outcomes for somewhat similar offenses. Wallace gets prison whereas Lafave got house arrest. Why the difference? I don't know.