Female teacher charged for sex with minor male student

20 November, 2007

A special-education teacher of a high school in Canada is facing charges of conducting a sexual relationship with her 13-year-old male student.

The accused, Dina Calautti, 35, of Mississauga, is accused of indulging in sexually explicit conversations online for several months with the boy, aged 16.

Then they had face-to-face meetings, in which the alleged sexual assault occurred, media reports said, quoting the police.

Dina Calautti, a married woman with a young child, has been charged with sexual assault, sexual exploitation and luring of a child on the internet. She
has since been suspended from her teaching duties in Brampton and is due to appear in court on December 17, 2007.

A government official said the alleged acts of Dina Calautti are criminal because the teacher is in a position of trust and the boy cannot legally consent because he is not 18 years old.

Meanwhile, high school students of Notre Dame Secondary School, where Dina Calautti has been teaching since 2000, are angered over the charges
levelled against their teacher. The students described her as “the greatest teacher in the world,” media reports said, insisting that all she did was help
the 16-year-old boy get over an emotional breakup with his girlfriend.

Most students were shocked and could not believe that one of the most popular teachers at the school had been arrested, reports said.

The alleged victim, a Grade 11 student, who cannot be named, on his part, has denied having any sexual or romantic relationship with his teacher, but
admitted that he sought advice from her during online MSN internet chats after his girlfriend left him.

He was quoted by the media as explaining: “She did nothing wrong. She helped me get over my ex-girlfriend. All we did was talk. Our conversations
weren’t sexually explicit. She never touched me. Police have taken this way, way too far. When they told me she was going to be charged, I was speechless. I would have dropped out of school if it weren’t for her. She’s the best teacher I’ve ever had. I was failing all my courses in Grade 9 and she got me back up.”

A spokesman for the Dufferin-Peel District Catholic School Board, which runs the Notre Dame Secondary School, said Dina Calautti has been teaching special education classes, helping students who need extra help or have learning disabilities.

The police chief of Peel’s Special Victims Unit said Dina Calautti was charged in view of her position of authority over a student. He described the sexual assault as being “minor” since it involved an allegation of “leg touching.”

He added: “There is no suggestion that any sexual intercourse took place. The other offences involve conversations between them in their residences.
These are offences because she is in a position of authority and he can’t consent because he is not 18.”

In another sex scandal involving a female teacher and a male student, a middle-school teacher in Nebraska, the United States, has been accused of having sex with a 13-year-old student and fleeing to Mexico with him.

Kelsey Peterson, 25, has been charged with having an “inappropriate relationship” with a boy who is her former student.

Both were found in a mall parking lot in the border town of Mexicali, Mexico, on November 2, 2007, and were arrested.

Kelsey Peterson faces a federal charge of crossing state lines to have sex with a minor, which is punishable by 10 years to life in prison and a fine of
$250,000. A judge has denied her bail.

She has also been charged in with felony counts of kidnapping and child abuse and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

The boy, in an interview with news agency The Associated Press, had said he and the teacher had sex twice. He also said that it was her idea to go to
Mexico, but that he went along with it to see relatives and to get away from his problems.

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