Ohio Dance Teacher Gets Prison in Sex Case - Updated

(Summit County, Ohio) Yesterday, 34-year-old tap dancing teacher Kimberly Sauto was sentenced to one year in prison for one count of unlawful sexual conduct with a 15-year-old boy.

Summit County Assistant Prosecutor Aaron Howell asked Common Pleas Judge Judy Hunter for a four-year sentence, noting that Sauto gave alcohol to the boy in the time leading up to the offense.

It didn’t happen just once, he told the judge.

However, Judge Hunter said Sauto, mother-of-two, was a first-time felony offender and hadn't been in trouble with the law previously. Therefore, Judge Hunter indicated the prosecution's recommended sentence was "too harsh."

In the end, a tearful Sauto was apologetic to the court and spectators and asked for mercy. She'll serve less than a year because of 52 days credit for time served.

Sauto was ordered to register as a sexually-oriented offender.

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Ohio Dance Teacher and Boy, 15
[Previous 1/28/12 post]
(Akron, Ohio) A 34-year-old dance instructor, Kimberly Sauto, has been found guilty of unlawful sexual conduct with a 15-year-old male student.

Prosecutors said Sauto's husband reported the relationship to Sagamore Hills police after finding condoms in his wife's dance bag, and text messages between her and the victim.

Investigators said the victim was a student in Sauto's tap dancing class. They had sex in Sauto's car in August 2011, according to prosecutors. During the trial, Sauto testified, but did not admit to a sexual relationship.

"The defendant admitted that she had written him love letters, admitted to text messages, admitted to kissing him, but did deny having a sexual relationship with him," said Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh.

On the witness stand, Sauto also said that she still loves the boy today, according to Bevan Walsh.

Sauto is in custody at the Summit County Jail. Sentencing is scheduled for March.