Teacher pleads guilty to sex with 14-year-old student

A 27-year-old public school teacher at M.S./I.S. 8 in Jamaica has pleaded guilty to the statutory rape of a 14-year-old student this past spring.
Melissa Weber, 27, formerly of West Babylon, Long Island, was employed as a social studies/homeroom teacher at the school, located at 108-35 167th Street in Jamaica. She pleaded guilty to second-degree rape before Acting Queens Supreme Court Justice Robert Raciti.
Sentencing was set for September 23, at which time Justice Raciti indicated he would likely sentence the defendant, who has been incarcerated since her arraignment on May 28, to time served, 10 years’ probation, and order her to register as a sex offender for the next 20 years and to undergo sex offender counseling during the period of her probation. The defendant will also be required to inform the Probation Department of any and all Internet identifiers she may use, refrain from using any social network web sites, and not visit school grounds or any other places where children under the age of 18 may be congregating.
District Attorney Richard A. Brown noted that his office will notify the State Education Department that the defendant has been convicted of an offense requiring her to register as a sex offender, which will trigger an automatic revocation of her teaching license/certificate.
According to the criminal charges, Weber engaged in sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old male student in a second-floor classroom at M.S./I.S. 8 on seven separate occasions between April 13 and May 14 of this year. Weber allegedly told the victim, “Don’t tell anyone. I could get arrested and I could lose my teaching license.”
The DA said the case came to light when the boy’s mother, who is a member of the school’s PTA, was told by sources at the school that a teacher was engaging in an inappropriate relationship with her son. The mother obtained the teacher’s telephone number and then checked her son’s cell phone and found hundreds of contacts between the teacher and her son over the preceding two months. One of the last texts from the teacher allegedly stated, “Erase your phone.”