Missouri school nurse, 47, had sex with underage student eight times before offering him $2,000 as hush money
ARNOLD, MISSOURI: An Elementary school nurse admitted on Friday to having sex with an underage student eight times before offering to pay off his $2,000 car loan in exchange for his silence.
Tina Maria Sumner, 47, pleaded guilty to two counts of statutory rape and one count of victim tampering.
The alleged incidents occurred between 2015 and 2017 when Sumner worked as a nurse at Fox Elementary School in Arnold and involved an unidentified victim aged below 16 years.
On August 30, 2017, the victimized student came forward and lodged a complaint against the accused, telling the police that the places he had sex with Sumner were his house, her house and a Fox Elementary School District building in Arnold, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Although Sumner was arrested in 2017, she was not charged at the time and released after just being told not to contact the victim.
However, three months after her release, the boy's mother called one of the detectives investigating the case and told him that Sumner had sent her son a $2,000 check to pay off a loan on his vehicle on the condition that he would drop the case.
The police were also provided with a copy of the check, after which the authorities obtained cellphone records, which revealed calls between Sumner and the boy between June and November of 2017.
Although Sumner originally faced 17 years in prison if convicted in the trial, the plea deal reduced her sentence considerably.
After admitting to her crimes, she will serve a seven-year prison term that included a 120-day in-custody sex offender assessment program.
After completing the full length of the program, the accused will be evaluated by the Missouri Department of Corrections.
A judge will then decide whether she is to remain in prison or be released.
She will also have to serve a mandatory five years of probation for victim tampering. Her lawyer Mark Hammer said that his client also has to register as a sex offender and continue a treatment program.
Sumner's sentencing is scheduled for October 25 before Jefferson County Circuit Judge Darrell Missey.
In 2005, she was named the school nurse of the year by the Jefferson County Association of School Nurses.