RE's Story
I was a victim of grooming by my 36 year-old high school English teacher and theatre director.
His grooming continued well into my years of college and wasn't until 10 years after my high school graduation did I come forward to my family, the school district, and the courts. I was faced with a lot of public scrutiny as he was a well-liked teacher in our district.
The public believed my age at the time provided enough consent and that my delay in coming forward had hidden motives. I decided to publicly announce my name in hopes that it would give confidence to other's who have faced grooming but also show that expected victims are not as stereotyped as you would think.
Here are two of my public statements:
Two years after dealing with the courts, delayed trials, negotiating plea-deals-- I got my moment in justice when my abuser plead to two counts of "sexual conduct with a minor" and I was able to read my victim statement to him, to his wife, and his children.
November 19, 2010 — the day before my birthday. He kissed me in his classroom as if it were a present. That kiss was not a gift. It was the beginning of manipulation I never consented to.
A note from my birthday card, written in his favorite blue pen: “17. That is now the distance in between us… you’re a little bit closer- something worth noting. Something else worth noting? That I love you, Beautiful. Always. Thank you for letting me share you.”
That was after only 60 days in his classroom. He was 35. Older than I am today. A married man. A father of two, with another child on the way. And I was 17. His student. A child.
He used the classroom to hide his crimes, and Christianity to justify them. There were explicit pictures. There was oral sex. There was intercourse. In his classroom. In his office. In his car. In the places where I should have been safest, he trapped me instead. He left love notes on my quizzes. He sent sexual emails and texts. He slipped me letters, chose songs, and told me they were ours alone. He taught me to keep secrets—his secrets.
He chose me because I was vulnerable. My mother was struggling with her demons, my biological father absent, my stepfather leaving us, and my grandparents unprepared to raise a teenager. He noticed my loneliness, lack of adult involvement, and he exploited it. He even shook my parents’ hands at school plays, while using me for sex days before. This was not romance. This was calculated. This is grooming.
The damage did not end when the abuse stopped. It still lives in me. I carry shame that does not belong to me, yet it clings to every part of who I am. I wrestle with the confusion he planted in me — how he convinced me it was love, how he wrapped his reasoning around me so tightly that I almost felt bad for him. That twisted pity still makes me sick. It left me broken in ways that don’t just fade: anxiety that gnaws at me, guilt that never lets me rest, intimacy that feels unsafe, dependency that makes me doubt myself. It has strained my relationships, even my past marriage, because the lessons he carved into me were not about love — they were about control.
He left me all tangled up in my own head, questioning my worth, my body, my trust, and my very ability to be loved without strings attached. I have desperately been trying to unlearn his engraved behaviors through therapy topped with a level of self hatred. As I find my voice in this court, I hope to use my abuse as a story to educate the public of the dangers of manipulative strategic predators. This is how I fight to heal.
Two years ago when I finally told the truth, I faced shame and suspicion—even from family. I endured public scrutiny as I tried to defend myself, when I should never have had to defend against the actions of a grown man who preyed on a girl who still rode her bicycle to school.
For ten years I have been an educator. Every day I protect students entrusted to me. I do not take from them what is not mine. I do not destroy their safe space. I do not hide behind my authority to steal their childhoods. As their teacher, I look at my students and see their innocence — their awkwardness, their joy, their vulnerability. And every day I struggle with the sickening confusion of how the man who groomed me ever convinced himself that what he was doing to me was anything other than abuse. I see children. He saw an opportunity. That is the distinction between us: I am a teacher. He is a predator who weaponized his title to stroke his ego. He used his power to steal my innocence and fracture my trust in this world.
The shadow of what he did follows me everywhere. I am asking this court to hold him accountable and hear my trauma — not only for the crimes he committed, but for the deliberate destruction of a child’s safety, a child’s trust, and a child’s future. My childhood.
He once praised me in my graduation letter, writing: “If you talk, students will want to listen, and with that they will learn.” Well, the world is my classroom now. And the world will learn: Grooming is not love. Grooming is not mentorship. Grooming is calculated manipulation without consent. That is what he did to me. That is who he is. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to begin healing.