Married school teacher, 36, who performed oral sex on female eighth-grade student sentenced to five years in prison
A former elementary school teacher from New Jersey who previously pleaded guilty to having a sexual relationship with a teenage girl at her school has been sentenced to prison.
We previously reported that Lauren Coyle-Mitchell, 36, was teaching the second grade at Dr. Lena Edwards Academic Charter School in Jersey City in 2015 when she allegedly performed oral sex on an eighth-grade girl at her home in Lyndhurst.
According to her indictment, she performed oral sex on the victim at least once between October 1, 2014, and June 15, 2015, and exchanged explicit messages with her over text and email.
She was arrested in June 2015 after staff at the school observed what they felt was inappropriate behavior between Coyle-Mitchell and the eighth-grader during a class trip to Washington D.C. and reported her to the police.
After her arrest, the 36-year-old, who is married, took to Facebook to proclaim her innocence. "Tragic accusations have been brought up against me," she wrote. "They are not true, and my name will be cleared."
"Thank you to the people who know me and know I would not do anything that horrible," she continued. "To the others... Wait... the day will come when someone accuses you of something you didn't do. Then you will see how it feels."
But a month after her initial arrest, Coyle-Mitchell was arrested once again, this time on contempt of court charges.
She was accused of violating her bail conditions and contacting the victim, and prosecutors revealed the victim had received two calls from a restricted number. They said they were sure it was Coyle-Mitchell because the teen had also received a one-word text message in which the sender had used her "pet name" that was used exclusively by the teacher.
An investigation then revealed Coyle-Mitchell had researched how to restrict her number while making a phone call and had downloaded an application that would allow her to do so.
Her lawyer argued that the teacher was suffering from an anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder and that she was acting as merely a mentor to the teen. He also said his client broke her bail agreement because she had a "moment of poor judgment."
Coyle-Mitchell pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child in connection to the incident this past January as a part of a plea agreement as her husband watched on at the Superior Court in Hackensack.
She tearfully acknowledged that her actions were "emotionally and morally damaging" to the victim.
This past Friday, August 2, a judge sentenced the 36-year-old to serve at least four years and three months in state prison, according to the Daily Mail.
Under the terms of her plea agreement, she will also be under parole supervision for the rest of her life, will have to register as a sex offender, give up her teaching license, and never seek public employment.