Story Published:
Feb 25, 2008 at 3:34 PM CST
Story Updated:
Feb 25, 2008 at 6:47 PM CST
A former special education teacher for Manual High School admits she had sex with a student and pleaded guilty to state charges today.
Jodi Church will serve four-and-a-half years behind bars, concurrent with a separate seven-year sentence for sexual solicitation over the Internet that she was sentenced last week in federal court.
Today she was sentenced for having a sexual relationship with one of her students.
Her attorney, Mark Wertz, said, "It gave her the opportunity to take responsibility which is what she wanted to do and also gives her the opportunity to pay her debt to society, but also to lead a full life when she's relseased."
Wertz says the victim and his mother did not want to press charges against Church in the most recent case.
He worked with state and federal prosecutors to reach plea agreements in both cases.
Peoria County States Attorney Kevin Lyons said, "I think the message is the same whether it's a seven-year prison sentence up the street or a four and a half concurrent here. That is, if you play the risk and get caught there's a serious consequence to that so I'm pleased with what the judge did today."
She will spend her time at a Texas Federal prison and will remain under court supervision for life when she's finished serving her prison sentence.
Saturday, Apr 12 at 12:33 PM Christopher K. wrote ...
Jodi Church is my sister. Tell me how fair it is that Ian McDonald gets three years probation, and now Andre Williams is looking at probation to three years for the same offense. Why has our family been unfairly targeted by Kevin Lyons? By the way, the state could NOT have brought up any of the federal My Space allegations in her state case if it had gone to trial. Our family believes this is unfair to Jodi, and we are going to make this known to the citizens of central Illinois.