Former Miss Kentucky who sent nude photos to 15-year-old student on Snapchat sentenced to two years in prison
A former Miss Kentucky and teacher has been sentenced to prison after she admitting to exchanging sexually charged photos with a teenage student when she was teaching at a school in West Virginia. 29-year-old Ramsey BethAnn Bearse was sentenced to two years in prison at the Kanawha County Circuit Court on Tuesday. Kanawha Assistant Prosecutor Meshell Jarrett said she was also given an additional 10 years of supervised release and ordered to register as a sex offender for life, Breitbart reported.
Bearse pleaded guilty to one count of possessing material depicting minors in sexually explicit conduct on December 17, 2019. In court, she admitted she had made a mistake while exchanging messages on Snapchat last year. According to police, she and the student, who cannot be named for legal reasons, exchanged sexually charged photos between August and October of 2018. According to a criminal complaint, lewd photos of Bearse were found by one of the student's parents on his phone, leading to her arrest in December 2018.
Bearse told the court she had meant to send a risque photo to her husband, but ended up sending it to the teen by mistake. According to her, she continued to send additional photos to the student because she was "afraid to not appease him".
"Since I am the adult, and he was just a teenager, it is my fault, and I accept full blame for the situation," Bearse said. "So that’s how I’m guilty of this crime. I messed up big-time."
After her first arrest, Bearse was released on a $10,000 property bond. She was subsequently suspended from her teaching position at Jackson Middle School. Kanawha County Schools said in a statement at the time: “Mrs. Bearse is a teacher at Andrew Jackson Middle School. We cannot comment on personnel matters, but we will follow all applicable policies and procedures. The safety and security of our students is our top priority.” Bearse was crowned Miss Kentucky in 2014 under her maiden name Ramsey Carpenter, before getting married to coal magnate Charles 'Chas' Bearse in July 2016. She also made it to the top 12 while competing for the Miss America title in 2015 when she impressed pageant judges with her talent as a bluegrass fiddler, as well as her advocacy for people who suffer from multiple sclerosis.
Following the win, she went on to serve as spokeswoman for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and even featured in a series of interviews where she opened up about being diagnosed with a central nervous system disease back in 2010. Bearse was last teaching science to eighth-graders at the Andrew Jackson Middle School in Cross Lanes, West Virginia.
In May this year, a former teacher in Ohio who engaged in sex with a teenage student in exchange for improving his grades was released early from prison due to good behavior. Dayton Daily News reported how Madalyn Arnett, who used to teach social studies at Franklin High School, pleaded guilty in March 2019 to sexual battery in Warren County Common Pleas Court. She was sentenced by Judge Timothy Tepe to four years in prison in May 2019. However, she was released after serving just a year of that sentence.