Lawyer: Lexington teacher to plead guilty
Posted: Wednesday, July 02, 2008
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- A former Lexington teacher accused of having sex with a 13-year-old male student and fleeing with him to Mexico is expected to plead guilty to reduced charges Wednesday.
James Martin Davis, the attorney for 26-year-old Kelsey Peterson, said his client will plead guilty to federal charges of having sex with a minor across state lines.
It's similar to the original charge, Davis said, but doesn't carry a minimum 10-year-sentence. Davis said he expects his client to spend six to seven years in prison.
A message left for the U.S. Attorney's office in Nebraska on Tuesday wasn't immediately returned.
Peterson fled Lexington with the boy, a former student of hers, in October. They were found in a mall parking lot in the border town of Mexicali, Mexico, about a week later.
The boy has told The Associated Press that he didn't consider Peterson his girlfriend but that they did have sex.
Davis has maintained that the law Peterson was being charged under was inappropriate because it was intended to combat forced prostitution. The law was originally called the White Slave Traffic Act and is now called the Mann Act, named after its author, Rep. James R. Mann (R-IL).
"She's always said ... she'd plead to what she did do, but she wasn't going to plead to what she didn't do," Davis said Tuesday.
He said he hopes state charges, which include kidnapping and first-degree sexual assault, will be dropped, too. A call to the Dawson County attorney's office wasn't answered late Tuesday.
The Associated Press previously named the boy as police searched for him but stopped using his name in reports after authorities charged Peterson with a sex crime.
He was an illegal immigrant in the United States when he left with Peterson, but is back in Nebraska temporarily after he was granted humanitarian parole by the Department of Homeland Security.
U.S. District Court, Nebraska: http://www.ned.uscourts.gov
Dawson County: http://www.dawsoncountyne.net
James Martin Davis, the attorney for 26-year-old Kelsey Peterson, said his client will plead guilty to federal charges of having sex with a minor across state lines.
It's similar to the original charge, Davis said, but doesn't carry a minimum 10-year-sentence. Davis said he expects his client to spend six to seven years in prison.
A message left for the U.S. Attorney's office in Nebraska on Tuesday wasn't immediately returned.
Peterson fled Lexington with the boy, a former student of hers, in October. They were found in a mall parking lot in the border town of Mexicali, Mexico, about a week later.
The boy has told The Associated Press that he didn't consider Peterson his girlfriend but that they did have sex.
Davis has maintained that the law Peterson was being charged under was inappropriate because it was intended to combat forced prostitution. The law was originally called the White Slave Traffic Act and is now called the Mann Act, named after its author, Rep. James R. Mann (R-IL).
"She's always said ... she'd plead to what she did do, but she wasn't going to plead to what she didn't do," Davis said Tuesday.
He said he hopes state charges, which include kidnapping and first-degree sexual assault, will be dropped, too. A call to the Dawson County attorney's office wasn't answered late Tuesday.
The Associated Press previously named the boy as police searched for him but stopped using his name in reports after authorities charged Peterson with a sex crime.
He was an illegal immigrant in the United States when he left with Peterson, but is back in Nebraska temporarily after he was granted humanitarian parole by the Department of Homeland Security.
U.S. District Court, Nebraska: http://www.ned.uscourts.gov
Dawson County: http://www.dawsoncountyne.net
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just the facts wrote on Jul 2, 2008 11:39 PM: