Another Tampa Teacher Sentenced for Sex Crimes
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Sex with students seems to be the hot topic in Tampa lately. Right on the heels of the Debra Lafave situation, there is news that Jaymee Wallace received three years in prison (to be followed by three years of probation) today lewd and lascivious battery and unlawful sexual activity with a minor student. She used to be a math teacher and basketball coach at Wharton High School in New Tampa. I have family at that school, by the way.
Wallace had a relationship for 18 or 19 months with a girl who was in one of her math classes and was also on the basketball team she coached. The teacher attached a note in an envelope to a graded paper that she returned to the student telling the student that she found her attractive. That started a series of back and forth notes that eventually turned into a physical relationship after the student indicated she was interested in more than just note.
The student is 18 now, but was 15 when the relationship started. Police reports and court documented detail a relationship that was carried out in parked cars and in the teacher’s apartment – the same apartment she shared with the husband she married in the midst of the affair with her student.
Wallace pleaded guilty earlier in hopes of lightening her sentence, which could have been up to 30 years in prison. The victim also stated that she did not want Wallace to go to prison, admitting the relationship was consensual.
Many people are speculating as to why Debra Lafave got away with house arrest while Wallace will be serving time in a cell. Most agree that it comes down to the appearance of the two teachers and the argument presented by Lafave’s attorney that she was “too pretty” to spent time in jail.
A pretty face might get you a second date or a modeling gig, but it’s a sick world that allows that same asset to determine severity of punishment.
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