Pregnant Ohio school superintendent caught on cam having sex with 16-year-old student who showed off the video
WINDHAM, OHIO: An Ohio school superintendent, jailed for having sex with a 16-year-old student, was actually caught after the victim showed off a video of them in the act to his friends, it has been revealed.
Laura Amero, 35, formerly a principal at Windham High School and superintendent of the Windham Exempted Village School District in Portage County, had first come to the attention of the authorities in March 2019 after they were contacted by a concerned parent, according to Fox8.
During the subsequent investigation, detectives learned that Amero had sexual relations with a 16-year-old student in her office and attempted to be intimate with another while she was the principal of the school between 2015 and 2017.
They also learned that there was a video of her having sex with the student that had made the rounds in the school, and confronted her about it during an interview, tapes of which have now emerged.
In the recording, when asked whether she knows of the video by an officer, Amero responded, "I heard there was a video too and that he showed it to people on the basketball team."
She initially claimed that she was not the woman in the video and denied any wrongdoing, but confessed when the officer revealed they had evidence of her illegal relationship in the form of messages in Snapchat and text.
"You sent him some pictures and he sent some back, and that eventually, it wound up with you calling him down to the office and (BLEEP)," the officer told her.
In a follow-up interview two days later, Amero admitted she had a sexual encounter with the teen and offered to resign from her position if it could help her avoid prosecution.
"I just need it to go away, so if I need to resign at the end of the year, I'll (BLEEP) resign, I will get out. It was a weak moment, it was stupid," she said, before adding, "I'm not a predator, I'm not."
Amero had been promoted from assistant superintendent to superintendent after she had sex with the victim and stepped down from the role in June, two months after her arrest.
In November, she pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual battery and sexual imposition, and in February, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison — the maximum sentence allowed under state law — and ordered to register as a sex offender after release by a Portage County judge.
During the sentencing hearing, she had revealed she was pregnant and due in March, following which the judge had delayed her incarceration until April, two weeks after she was expected to give birth.