Makes me want to be 15 again.
A county judge accepted a guilty plea Friday from Amelia Tat, the former Jack Jouett Middle School teacher who was arrested last June and charged with three counts of carnal knowledge of a minor and one count of taking indecent liberties with a child. Two of those charges were dropped, but Tat still faces a 10-year maximum prison sentence on each of the charges to which she has pleaded guilty.
Tat, 27, was a science teacher at Jack Jouett during the 2014-15 school year. It was during the latter half of that school year that Tat began communicating with one of her students via social media sites like Instagram and Snapchat, prosecutor Darby Lowe revealed on Friday. She intimated in those communications that she had developed feelings for the student, and began asking him personal questions.
At one point, Tat asked the student to “stay late and help her” with something after class, at which time they had sexual intercourse. The victim was between the ages of 13 and 15 at the time, Lowe said.
It is unclear where exactly the encounter occurred and whether it took place in Tat’s classroom; while Lowe said it occurred in Albemarle County, she did not specify and would not elaborate when asked after the hearing. A spokesman for the county school system also declined to comment on the matter.
The following September, the victim in the case was at a baseball tournament in Lynchburg, where Tat has an apartment. Tat picked up the victim from one of the games, took him out to eat and then back to her apartment, where they again had sex, Lowe said.
The relationship came to light when the mother of the victim found text messages from Tat on her son’s phone and discovered there was “something going on” between them. She contacted authorities on June 22, and Tat was arrested a short time later. While she initially denied the claims, she later confessed.
Because the offenses occurred in both Albemarle County and the city of Lynchburg, Tat faced charges in each jurisdiction. Per the new agreement, the carnal knowledge charge from the Lynchburg encounter has been dropped, as has the indecent liberties charge